the crucifix was constructed wrong
by wild wolf free17
Summary: Sam time travels from the end of Swan Song to midway through No Rest for the Wicked. Ain't nobody's plans left intact. [fix-it AU]
1. Chapter 1

Title: the crucifix was constructed wrong

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Anne Sexton

Warnings: AU after Swan Song and during No Rest for the Wicked; references to canon character death; canon-typical violence/blood; a psychotic, irrational, erotic codependency; it started out as a fluffy fix-it but it's getting kinda dark; anything we learn after Swan Song is not canon here

Pairings: none. um. Dean&Sam are soulmates, obviously, but I'm not sure if it's platonic or romantic here

Rating: PG

Wordcount: WIP

Point of view: third

Note: I'm currently rewatching the entire series. I'm on disk 3 of season 6. This idea has beaten me over the head.

* * *

He blinks in the middle of the ritual, shudders, doubles over as the words trail off. "What?" he mumbles as a burn starts in his head and then moves down, spreading through his chest, his arms, his legs. He gasps at the pain—

 _I'm sorry_ , a voice says softly. _I was given a choice, you see._

He closes his eyes, gasping for air.

 _You'll make the same choice,_ the voice says.

Light— _For Dean_ , he hears—

He opens his eyes. Uncurls, glances at the candles, the symbols. "Ruby," he murmurs. Smiles slowly.

Resumes the ritual.

.

Once, there had been a desperate younger brother, who tried every last thing he could think of to save his older brother from Hell. After he failed, he tried every last thing he could think of to rescue his older brother from Hell. After he failed, he tried every last thing he could think of to exact vengeance on the one who stole his brother from him.

He went down a terrible path. Let himself be tricked, led like a lamb. Finally, because there was nothing left, he let the darkest of the fallen angels in and did the very best he could.

His very best wasn't good enough, but as he fell, tangled with two angels and the younger brother he barely knew, he saw a crack in the world and he lunged toward it.

There, in a split moment of time and space, something very old looked at him and he stared back, stripped down to only a soul. _Interesting_ , he heard. _What an interesting thing you are._

It laughed, that very old something, and said, _Because you have amused me, small one, I shall offer you a boon._

There, in a split moment of time and space, something very old asked, _To when would you return, small one?_

He gazed into infinity and replied, _Before my brother went to Hell._

Again, that very old something laughed. _As you will, small one._

The very old something closed its eyes.

The desperate younger brother screamed as light—

.

He finishes the ritual, stands. Waits. He breathes, stretches his arms, his shoulders, his spine. He feels young. Strong.

A demon approaches. He turns to watch her appear, pasting a worried expression on his face. Dean was right; her true form, beneath the meatsuit, is hideous. "Ruby," he says, making the words sound as worried as he can, "Ruby, we know where Lilith is. We need your knife."

It won't work on her, of course.

Ruby refuses, going through the same old song and dance, so helpful yet not, so eager yet hesitant.

Dean slips down the stairs. He keeps his eyes on Ruby even though he wants to throw himself at his brother, so young, so frightened, still the strongest person he's ever met.

There's Azazel's blood in him, and Lucifer's bloodline, and there's a reason it always came back to him and his brother. A reason they started the end. They were led like lambs.

Ruby attacks his brother.

It still has to play out, so he lets it.

.

He sings along with Dean, wondering, _What happens if Lilith dies here? Tonight?_

Bobby and Dean make the plan, and he chimes in; he can feel every demon, Lilith most of all.

Ruby was poisoning him, making him biddable. Leashing him until the time was right. Driving a wedge between him and Dean, creating a gulf they couldn't cross, even as everything went to pieces around them.

He and Dean slip towards the house; Ruby follows and attacks Dean. Again.

He warned her, the first time around; he remembers that. He warned her.

He remembers how it felt, seeing Alistair standing over Dean. Seeing Lilith let the hounds in.

Ruby has her hands on his brother, so Sam _reaches_. She gasps but before she can scream, before she can try slipping out of the meatsuit, Sam covers her mouth with his palm.

"Sam?" Dean whispers.

He pulls her away from his brother, pressing down at the demon with every bit of his will, his rage, his hatred—and the demon burns.

Dean turns, eyes wide, and watches as Sam lowers the meatsuit to the ground. "Sam?" Dean repeats softly.

Demons approach, dozens of them. Sam steps over the meatsuit, saying, "Let's get inside."

.

"Sam," Dean says once they're inside with the sprinklers keeping the demons at bay.

It's so much easier without the demon blood.

Dean's panicking, fingers clenched around the knife's hilt, and he keeps looking from Sam to around the room, and Sam has to smile. Maybe he was meant to be Lucifer's meatsuit, which seems like such a stupid thing—maybe he was meant to become the King of Hell, which seems just as stupid. But it doesn't matter.

Because for one moment in time, he held Lucifer still, ripped Lucifer wide open, and _saw_.

Being Lucifer's meatsuit wouldn't save him from Lilith; he's still not sure she ever knew the true plan. But she did her best to destroy him, while his brother died two steps away, and she failed. A few drops of demon blood when he was an infant couldn't possibly cause that.

He breathes, watching his brother breathe. Dean looks so young. So unburdened.

Lilith is upstairs. She hasn't left the child yet.

She won't, because Sam _reaches_.

.

Dean follows him up the stairs, body tense with all the words he's biting back, fingers white on the knife. Every part of Sam is singing, is ready, has never been stronger or surer.

The woman cowers in the corner as Sam strides into the room. Lilith rages, the floor and the walls shaking, and when she turns her gaze on him, the girl's eyes turn bone-white. "You!" she shrieks with the girl's voice. "How!?"

He smirks, body loose, shoulders relaxed. "I'm what you wanted, right?" he asks. Dean steps up beside him; to Sam, he's obviously confused but backing Sam's play, whatever it is. "You and Azazel, you wanted a king—well, here I am."

He can practically hear everything Dean isn't saying, but he keeps his gaze on Lilith. She holds up a hand; wind rushes around the room, a light begins to build, and Sam steps in front of Dean.

He doesn't hold up a hand. He doesn't need to, not anymore.

The woman screams as Lilith lowers her hand, and the little girl's meatsuit gazes up at him in bewildered horror. "Lilith," he says, and his glee is evident in every word as he continues, "You're trapped in that body. You can't run. You can't hide."

She killed his brother. Dean died screaming, torn apart by hellhounds, and then he went to Hell, where he was tortured for decades, and he had to live with the guilt of what he did when he broke. Because of this demon. Because of Azazel's plan, because of the angels, because of the demented game Heaven and Hell played, will try to play again.

"I'm not going to exorcise you, Lilith," he says. The woman is weeping against the wall, and Dean is warm behind him, stepping next to him, confused and frightened and just a little bit proud. Sam can feel his emotions, can almost hear his thoughts.

He's not sure Lilith has ever been this terrified before. He revels in it.

She killed his brother. He reaches out and inside the little girl, Lilith burns.

.

Dean insists on taking care of the family, and then, they step outside to see all the neighbors collapsed on the ground. Sam knows that Dean wants to ask, wants to demand, wants to wrap him in cotton and never let him out of his sight.

"They're alive, Dean," Sam says, because he can feel their souls, all of them.

This is what Ruby tried to keep from him. What Azazel had groomed him for. What's the point of a vessel that can't withstand an angel's power?

"Boys!" Bobby shouts.

The hounds howl, drawing close; Dean flinches but then steps in front of Sam.

Sam says, "No." He can sense how the hounds hesitate, how they circle around. They have Dean's scent, and they were sent for him. "No," Sam says again.

They whine, all six of them.

Dean is panting, watching them, and Sam tilts his head, meeting each of their gazes.

"No," he says for the final time.

They slink back, ears flattened, tails tucked between their legs, and then they whirl and run.

"What the fuck is going on?" Bobby demands.

.

Sam sits shotgun, angled slightly so that he can watch Dean. Dean, who should be dead. Dean, who should be in Hell. Dean, who sacrificed everything he could to keep Sam safe, keep Sam fed, keep Sam clothed and in school, keep Sam alive. Dean, who he's betrayed and left behind and torn down.

"Stop lookin' at me like that, Sammy," Dean says.

Sam can't. His hands nearly beat Dean to death not even a day ago. Dean could've been torn apart by hellhounds not even an hour ago.

He ripped into Lucifer, and even though Lucifer is currently in his cage, he _saw_ and he _knows_ , and Michael could perhaps destroy him, or Death—but nothing less.

Nothing less can threaten him now, not Heaven or Hell, and he doesn't want to tell Dean any of it, doesn't want even the shadow of that weight on his shoulders, but he spent two years lying to his brother and he won't do it again.

He watches his brother, and he smiles.

.

There is a panic in Heaven. "The Righteous Man is not in Hell," Zachariah mutters. "How can this be?"

Raphael and Michael, who have not spoken to each other since moments after Gabriel left Heaven, share a glance before looking away.

Lucifer is still in his cage, yes—but something is free, and on Earth, and for the first time since Lucifer began questioning Father, Michael feels fear.

.

Dean sits down on Bobby's couch and fixes a determined, expectant gaze on Sam. Bobby glances from one to the other and decides to get a whiskey and leave them to it.

Sam has resolved to stop lying to his brother, but he's not sure where to start. He can already feel a dozen different ways of spinning this trying to fall out of his mouth.

Raising an eyebrow, Dean crosses his arms, slouches back against the couch. He's prepared to wait Sam out. He can be so damn patient sometimes. Sam almost always broke first, when they were kids.

Well. When _he_ was a kid, because Dean never really was.

"I have these nightmares," he says. "Sometimes they come true."

Dean rolls his eyes. Sam grins before looking down, letting the mirth fall away.

"Then it became telekinesis," Sam says. "And then I could exorcise demons with my mind." He doesn't look up, but he can hear Dean shift in place, can feel his confusion, his apprehension. "Only after you died, Dean. Only after I failed to save you from Hell."

He can hear Dean inhale sharply. "Sammy, what are you saying?" he asks, all worried big brother. The best man Sam has ever known. His idol, his hero.

"A year from now, I killed Lilith and let Lucifer free," he murmurs. "Two years from now, I let Lucifer in and then threw us into Hell." He closes his eyes. "I couldn't let it happen again, Dean. I couldn't."

"So you time traveled," Dean says. "To the night my deal came due."

Sam nods. He's still standing in the middle of the room, head tucked down, eyes squeezed shut, hunching in, trying to be as small as possible in a body that has never felt bigger. Dean's looking at him, he knows, so confused. A little frightened.

Dean sighs. Stands. He walks over slowly, silently, and Sam lets him come. He's not sure he could ever raise a hand against his brother again.

"Sammy," Dean says. He reaches out to grip Sam's shoulder with one hand and the other lightly lifts Sam's chin, but he keeps his eyes closed. Doesn't want to see whatever expression is on Dean's face. "Sammy," Dean says again. "Look at me."

Sam has to obey.

Dean's gazing up at him, warm and wondrous, and he says, "You never do anything halfway, do you?" He's smiling. "Why don't you sit down and tell me everything, okay, Sam? We'll deal with this, you and me, like we always have."

Sam nods, tears already leaking out, and then he wraps himself around his big brother and holds on as tight as he can.

.

In Heaven, councils are held by the highest choir. In Hell, battles wage as demons try to claim the throne Lilith held in waiting for Lucifer.

On Earth, Sam tells his brother everything, words tumbling and tripping off his tongue, hands clutching his brother, ignoring Bobby and the outside world, ignoring anything that isn't Dean, who doesn't turn away, no matter what Sam says, what Sam admits to, what Sam confesses.

Sam lays it all bare and waits for judgment.

.

Once Sam falls into an exhausted sleep right there on Bobby's couch, Dean slumps back, lets his head rest on the cushion. Sam is folded up next to him, pressed as close as he can without squashing Dean, and Dean strokes his hair, like when they were kids. He can hear Bobby in the kitchen, mumbling. Can feel Sam's chest rise and fall.

It's a fantastical story, the one Sam dumped in his lap. Horrific. _Awesome_ , he thinks, _in the old meaning of the word_. He looks down at his baby brother, the infant he once cradled, the little boy he protected as best he could, the man he let go, who he's carried out of three fires, who he willingly would've died for over and over and over again.

Azazel. Lilith. Lucifer. Angels. The Seals of the Apocalypse, the Four Horsemen walking the Earth. War between Heaven and Hell, played out by two brothers.

It hurt, listening. Not nearly as much as it hurt Sam to tell it.

He leans down to press as kiss to the top of Sam's head and whispers, "Sweet dreams, Sammy."

.

Bobby watches warily as Dean extricates himself from the couch, tucks a blanket around his brother. Dean can feel the heat of his gaze. He hesitates, hand resting on Sam's chest as it rises and falls, listening to the steady breaths.

Sam's always looked so young in his sleep. It's been a long time since Dean could curl around him, keep him safe from the monsters in the dark.

He turns to face Bobby, who gestures sharply for Dean to follow.

.

"What's going on, Dean?" Bobby asks. It's been almost 24 hours since Dean should've been dragged to Hell; he knows that Bobby slept at some point, but Dean sure hasn't. "You should be dead." Dean chuckles slightly as Bobby adds, "Not that I'm not glad you aren't. But what the fuck happened?"

Dean looks at him, then back to the glass of whiskey on the table in front of him, the one his fingers curl around. He should tell Bobby. Bobby, who has taken care of them and helped them and loved them since the first time Dad brought them here, since Dean started messing around with the cars out back and Sam lost himself in Bobby's library. Sometimes, on the best days, Sam would bring a book outside and settle on the trunk of a nearby car and read whatever book he'd chosen to Dean. Other days, even though they were too big for it, Sam would demand Dean do the reading, and he'd pull out all the old voices that used to make Sam laugh.

They were good times, the ones they had here.

So he should tell Bobby. He'd trust Bobby with his life, has. But with Sam's?

He didn't even trust his father with Sam's life.

So he looks Bobby straight in the eye and he says, "I don't know."

Bobby gives him a disappointed glare. "Really, boy? That's how you're gonna play it."

Dean smiles, though he can barely hold it. "Guess so."

After a long sigh, Bobby drains his own glass. "Then I'm goin' upstairs to bed. You should get some sleep."

Dean nods, watches him trudge out of the room. He wants to call him back, to dump this mess into someone else's lap. To just be a kid again and let the adults handle everything.

Except, he's never done that before. Not that he can remember. A roly-poly baby brother was shoved into his arms and he ran out of a fire, and while Sammy was wailing in his arms, Dean vowed, _I'll always take care of you_.

He leaves his glass half-full on the table and goes back to the den, where Sam is stirring restlessly in his sleep. Dean pauses to lightly touch his shoulder and murmur, "I'm here, Sammy," which calms Sam down like it did when he was little. Once Sam's settled again, Dean grabs a blanket and pillow from the pile in the corner and stretches out on the floor, between Sam and every possible entrance into the room.

.

In the morning, Bobby makes chitchat with Sam while Dean rustles up some breakfast. Dean keeps an ear on the conversation, chiming in whenever he thinks of something to say. Sam is relaxed, after a year of constant stress, and while Bobby is slightly reserved, Sam doesn't seem to notice.

Dean serves up the eggs: over easy for Bobby, scrambled with ketchup for Sam, scrambled without ketchup for himself, and sits down next to Sam, across from Bobby. He presses his knee to Sam's, just because he needs a point of contact, even though Sam's solid and warm next to him. "Bobby," he says. "We'll be headin' out this afternoon."

"You will?" Bobby asks, meeting Dean's eyes. "Don't you think the two'a ya need a rest?"

Sam leans in slightly, so Dean glances at him. He raises a brow and Sam shrugs, nodding.

"Yeah, Bobby," Dean says. "We're gonna rest, but it'll be somewhere out there, you know." He nods toward the window. "We've caused you enough grief and trouble for a lifetime."

Bobby shakes his head. "You're like my sons, you know. You don't have to leave."

Dean smiles brightly. "We know, Bobby."

Bobby's face doesn't drop, exactly, but it's obvious. Sam nudges his shoulder against Dean's. "We'll be back, Bobby, you know we will," Dean says.

Bobby nods and tucks back into his eggs.

.

"Wanna drive?" Dean asks, tossing the keys to Sam. Sam catches them in shock. "C'mon, Sammy, we gotta shag ass, daylight's wasting here," he says, grinning.

Bobby's on the porch, their goodbyes already said. He's promised to keep an eye and ear on the hunter network. Sam waves as he opens the Impala's door. He watches Dean nod to Bobby and circle the car.

He remembers this day, from last time. He spent it arguing with Bobby about what to do with Dean's body. He won that fight, obviously.

It still doesn't feel real, even though the car rocks as Dean throws himself into the passenger seat and the engine roars when Sam turns the key.

Sam doesn't know where they're going, or why. He doesn't care, either. This is Dean's show, because Dean didn't have these days, and every choice Sam's made since the first time around has been wrong or gone sideways.

"You're quiet, dude," Dean says, pushing a tape into the deck.

Sam huffs a small laugh. "I'm basking, Dean," he says, taking the turn out of Bobby's place. "You're alive. I know everyone who might come after us, and there's nothing they can do." He darts a small glance at his brother, about to ask—but then he focuses back on the road.

"What?" Dean asks.

"I just…" Sam pushes down on the gas. He wants to know; he doesn't want to know. In equal measure. He glances at Dean again, Dean sprawled over the seat, alive and smiling and lit up in the late afternoon sun. "Are you scared of me, Dean?"

He can feel the immediate response that Dean bites down. There's no noise except Metallica screaming, and Sam has to consciously control his breathing because what happens if, after everything, Dean sends him away again?

"Sammy," Dean finally says. "I wasn't scared when your nightmares started coming true, or when Azazel said you didn't come back fully you. Now, you've killed Lilith, and hellhounds listen to you, and you traveled back in time to stop all that fuckery from happening—" Dean chuckles. "You're my brother. The kid I've taken care of all my life."

Sam exhales. "Okay," he murmurs and hits the gas.


	2. Chapter 2

"Where is the Righteous Man!?" Zachariah rages. "Who killed Lilith!?"

Angels tear apart Heaven; demons tear apart Hell. Alastair and Crowley reach a stalemate. Michael still does not step forward, and so Zachariah remains in charge of the Righteous Man—once he is found.

If he was not dragged into the Pit by hellhounds, where is he? What happened?

"Scour the Earth!" Zachariah orders and angels take wing.

Lilith is the Final Seal, but other ways can be found. The Righteous Man must break the First Seal, but other ways can be found.

"Find the Winchesters!" Zachariah orders and more angels take wing, because any other ways will still require the Vessels.

.

There's an old cabin that Pastor Jim used to have; Dean makes the executive decision to take them there, because only Dad and Pastor Jim had known about it, he's pretty sure.

"Dean, what are we doin'?" Sam asks, when Dean tells him to turn off the highway. He's been following Dean's directions the whole time, answering Dean's questions in-between, while Dean takes notes on everything. The future? It's a fucked up place. Dean can't imagine what could've broken them apart like that, and he's fucking glad whatever it was won't happen now.

"Pastor Jim brought me to this place once," Dean says. "Right up here, then two lefts." Sam slows down because it's a pretty shitty road. Dean continues, "Anyway, um, he told me to feel free to use it, if I ever needed a safe house or something."

"Pastor Jim brought you here?" Sam asks, voice slightly off. "Where was Dad?"

"Um." Dean really should've thought up a story or something. "We'd been doing separate hunts for a few months by that point."

When Dean glances over, Sam's jaw is set, his fingers clenched on the wheel.

"It's a remote spot," Dean hurries to say. "Pretty well warded. We may have to stock up ourselves, don't know how well his supplies might have lasted."

"Okay," Sam says. His voice is mostly normal but his fingers are still clenched.

"Look, we'll get to the cabin," Dean says, "get you all settled, and then I'll head to the nearest town for groceries."

"No," Sam shoots back immediately. "I'm not letting you out of my sight, Dean. Not after everything."

Dean wants to argue. Wants to play the big brother card, wants to remind him who looks after who. But Sam literally traveled back in time after saving the world.

"Fine," he mutters.

As he reaches over to turn up the music, he can see the small smile on Sam's lips.

.

Sam may, perhaps, be a bit paranoid as he stays a single step behind Dean, gaze constantly flicking around, every one of his senses on high alert.

The first go-round, today he was drunkenly trying to make a crossroads' deal. This time, he's watching Dean fill a basket with both essentials and Sam's favorites, the things that were always rare treats when they were kids and passed over when they were hunting together because downtime almost never happened.

Dean doesn't say anything when Sam sneaks his favorites into the basket, too.

Throughout the shopping trip, they chitchat about movies from when they were young, the favorite of the schools they attended, the tuneup Dean'll give the Impala when they're all settled in. Sam grabs some horrible-looking novels and a couple coloring books with very intricate designs, so Dean makes a pass through the school supplies aisle to grab every kind of crayon, marker, and color pencils they have.

They check out and pay and load up the car, and Dean takes over driving.

"I don't think anyone's followed us," Dean comments when they're ten minutes away.

"No one has," Sam says.

He can feel them looking, searching, flying overhead, listening to the ground. The angels are very angry. The demons are just confused, but once they get their asses in gear, it'll be a shitshow.

He can feel them, trying to reach Dean. Shove him into Hell so that he can break the Seal. He wants to lash out and destroy them, every angel within a hundred-mile radius.

He can't, though, because that would be a definite signal.

"Well, here we are," Dean says, pulling up in front of ramshackle cabin. Sam can feel the extensive warding; he'll have to go over and add some of his own, but that can wait. "C'mon, let's unpack." Dean claps a hand on his shoulder.

.

Even though it looks like an abandoned piece of shit from the outside, it's pretty nice on the inside. It's got all the tricks and traps, so intricate it makes Bobby's house look weak. A weapons room, a library of lore, two bedrooms, a kitchen, an entire infirmary fit into a single room, and then a panic room.

"Wow," Sam murmurs as he explores.

"Yeah, Pastor Jim went all out," Dean calls from the kitchen. "Any requests for dinner, Sammy?"

"Nah, I'm good with anything." Sam places a hand over one of the studs in the back wall of the house.

It's almost frightening, how easy the power comes to him. An archangel's knowledge, an archangel's strength, one of the four greatest. Azazel's blood, a fallen angel, a body crafted to house Lucifer—

 _I shouldn't exist_ , Sam thinks as he pours a tendril of _protect, shield_ into the bones of the cabin.

"How you feel about smothered chicken?" Dean shouts.

Nothing is going to find them here. He knows Dean'll get antsy probably within a week, but until that happens, his brother is going to rest and recharge, is going to sleep, is going to take his time and do whatever he wants.

"Sounds good!" Sam replies, letting his hand fall.

He shouldn't exist, but he does. Here, now. Two years of fucking up, of making the wrong choice every time, of letting himself be led around because of his desperation, his rage, his pain—his despair.

He broke, when Dean died. When he couldn't save him, couldn't rescue him. Until he cradled Dean's body, he hadn't understood how Dean felt, why Dean made the deal. He only thought he had, after the heart attack. Sam shattered, right there in the pool of Dean's blood.

In hindsight, he finds it pathetic, how easy it was for Ruby to mold him, for the angels to lead him around. He was tailspinning, and then Dean was reeling, and it was just one disaster after another.

Dean's given enough. Has been hurt enough. It doesn't matter what happens now, because Dean's spent 24 years looking after Sam and it's Sam's turn.

He walks back through the house, letting his fingers trail along the wall. Dean's put the coloring stuff on the little table next to the kitchen doorway, so Sam grabs the book and the colored pencils.

"Dean," he says, settling on the stool at the breakfast bar. "Remember that story you used to tell me, about the prince that got turned into a dragon?"

Dean laughs, twirling the knife before beginning to slice the chicken breasts. "I haven't thought of that in years."

Sam slides the forest green shade of pencil out of the box. "Can you tell it now?" he asks.

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean says. "So, there was once this prince, the youngest son, and he was always askin' questions."

As he shades in the smallest swirl, Sam lets everything else fall away. There's just the counter beneath his arms, his brother's voice weaving a story, and it's the most peace he's felt in four years.

.

It bothers Dean, a little, the way Sam keeps looking at him, like he's something amazing, something Sam never thought he'd see again. It reminds him of the way he himself had looked at Sam, when he burst back into the room his little brother's body had been lying in, getting cold and starting to smell. There had been absolutely nothing he wouldn't have done, then, to bring Sam back. The crossroads deal was just his first option.

He'd told himself, for his last year, over and over again, that Sam would be fine. That Sam would be able to go back to that normal life he'd been dreaming of, away from monsters and blood, away from the demons that'd been dogging them their whole lives.

He'd known it was a lie, a good yarn he was spinning just to make himself feel better, because any last chance of normal Sam had went up in smoke, just like it had for Dean.

After Sam was up and around, after the Devil's Gate was closed, after Azazel died and Dad moved on to Heaven, Dean hadn't let Sam out of his sight, not for days. So the way Sam's acting now? He gets it, he really does. And they need a breather, so he settles into the cabin, hoping Sam'll be able to relax, will let some of the weight fall off his shoulders. He cooks their meals while Sam reads his way through the library (faster than he ever read before, but Dean won't mention that if Sam doesn't) and colors an entire coloring book of intricate and damned pretty designs, and he takes his time with the Impala, giving her a better cleaning job and tune-up than she's had in years, and Sam reads him one of those terrible novels he'd gotten at the store, and he requests story after story from their childhood, all those tales Dean made up to entertain his little brother and distract himself from wondering when Dad was coming back.

Here, in this little space they've carved out for themselves, there's nothing else. No demons, no ghosts, no angels (though, Dean still thinks the jury's out on that one). Just him, taking care of his little brother, the way he has for Sam's whole life. It's good, here. Quiet.

For the first four days, Dean focuses on feeding Sam, caring for the Impala, them both getting the rest they sorely need. They make a pallet in the panic room, weapons within reach, and curl up together like they haven't since they were boys, because Sam needs to hear Dean's heartbeat and Dean needs to feel Sam breathe. Nothing outside this little space matters.

But then, the need to get back on the road kicks in. While Dean's hiding out here, people are dying. _Saving people, hunting things_ , he told Sam once, what feels like lifetimes ago. It's the only thing Dean's ever been good at.

But Sam's happy here. After three years of non-stop threats, non-stop stress, non-stop worrying, there's a gigantic weight off Sam's shoulders, and Dean hasn't seen him this happy in… years. Since before Stanford.

He can't drag Sam away from this, and Sam sure as fuck won't let him go alone.

So he does his best to pretend, for Sam's sake.

.

"Dean," Sam says on the seventh morning. There are no books left in the library that he hasn't read, the Impala has never been in better condition, and Dean's about to crawl out of his skin because he thinks he's letting the world down.

Honestly? After all the shit Dean's been through, Sam wouldn't care if the world burned down and he might even salt the earth after, so long as their little piece of it is left untouched.

(That is probably a thought he should keep to himself.)

"Yeah, Sam?" Dean asks from where he's making cinnamon French toast. It's been a pleasant surprise, Dean cooking and doing a damn fine job of it. Gives Sam a glance of what could've been, had so many things been different.

"I think I found a hunt for us," Sam says.

For just a moment, Dean's entire body stills in the act of sprinkling cinnamon. But then he resumes making breakfast, shoulders slightly tense. "Yeah?" he says, voice cheery. How fake the tone is grates slightly at Sam but he ignores it.

"The next town over," Sam says, tapping away at his laptop. (He's not sure if Dean noticed there's no internet hook-up of any kind, and he won't mention it if Dean doesn't.) "There's a pattern," he continues, eyes on Dean. "Five women, all between 20 and 30, taken out of their beds."

"We got somethin' good here, Sam," Dean says, and there's a set to his shoulders Sam doesn't like.

Dean has given enough to a world that never gave a shit about it.

"You know, we're safe," Dean adds, turning around with two plates already served, that goddamned bright grin that has always rubbed Sam the wrong way because it's fake, because it's the grin Dean wears when he's giving Sam the last of the food, when he's bleeding all over the place because he threw himself in front of Sam, when he's sure he's about to die and it doesn't matter because Sam's alive.

Sam fucking hates that grin.

"We came here for a rest," Sam says, waiting until Dean's across from him to stretch his legs out, settle his foot against one of Dean's. He's not sure if Dean has noticed how often they keep reaching out, just for some small point of contact. Dean probably has. "Well, we've had seven days of it. I've been sleepin' better than I have for years." He shrugs, using the fork to cut off a piece of the toast. He knows it's gonna taste divine because Dean made it.

Dean won't look at him. Is going to sacrifice his happiness without even a word, just because he thinks something will make Sam happy.

"I wanna hunt, Dean," Sam says.

Dean sighs softly, and it's a concession and it's relief, and he tucks into his breakfast with gusto.

"Tell me about this case," Dean orders.

Sam doesn't really want to hunt. He'd be fine in this little cabin forever, as long as Dean is. But Dean's grinning for real, listening to Sam lay out what he knows so far, and it doesn't matter what they're doing, as long as Dean's happy.

Because that's all that matters.

.

They decide to keep the cabin as a homebase, a sanctuary. It's probably the safest place in the entire world. Dean's been peppering Sam with questions about his abilities and instead of being frightened or worried, like Sam remembers from the first go-round, he's curious and a little awed.

(Wary, too, Sam can feel it, but there's nothing jagged, nothing dark. Just Dean's big brother concern for _something's up with Sam_ and until Dean's sussed it out, he won't be content.)

Before they leave, Dean does a weapons' check, even though he'd done it on the fifth day. Sam helps him and then cleans out the fridge of anything that'll go bad within a month. It's a compromise: they'll be on the road for a month, going from case to case, but then they'll be back here for a week or two. He's not going to let Dean run himself ragged, and Sam himself wants a home, something with roots. He loves the Impala, of course he does—but for all that she's home, he needs something else, and he needs to give Dean something else.

Once they're ready, they step off the porch together and Sam lets his wards flare up, making sure this place will be waiting safely for them.

Dean's step hitches, just a little, and he glances over. Instead of saying anything, he quirks his lips slightly and shrugs.

It's so different from the first go-round. The angels completely fucked with his head, while Ruby had Sam all turned around, and the anger simmers in his veins.

But it's fine. Sam won't let it be anything else, not this time.

.

It turns out to be a ghost, a serial killer who was never caught but instead murdered in a mugging. His kid found his box of trophies and threw it into a landfill in a panic. It takes a couple days of research before they salt and burn the dude's remains. Then, when that doesn't work, they have to dig through the landfill for the box of trophies because—

"Oh, that's just sick," Dean groans. Sam smirks at the ground. "Yeah, laugh it up, Sasquatch," Dean tells him. "You're the one goin' in the muck."

Shaking his head, Sam starts to comb through the trash.

.

Dean keeps a lookout, rock salt bullets ready, grinning every time Sam makes a noise of disgust. The ghost, Harold Ryan, shows up the moment Sam finally finds the box but Dean shoots him, giving Sam enough time to obliterate the box and burn the ashes.

"Well, that was fun," Dean says brightly, breathing through his mouth so he doesn't catch a whiff of Sam.

"You're the worst," Sam tells him.

"Maybe so," Dean says, "but you're not gettin' in my car covered in that shit."

… some of it probably is shit, Dean thinks, but he knows better than to say it.

Sam tries pouting, pulling out his saddest eyes, and Dean just raises an eyebrow at him. "Fine," Sam huffs. He reaches for the Impala and Dean at the same time, beating the wings he doesn't actually have ( _not really, they're imprints, a scar that'll never heal_ ) and then they're in the parking lot of the motel.

Dean blinks up at him, mouth open. Sam shuffles slightly in place, nervous now.

"Okay," Dean mutters. He checks the Impala, makes sure she's locked, and then orders Sam, "Shower now. We'll talk after."

Sam nods and obeys.

.

"So, we're addin' teleportin' to the list," Dean says while Sam pulls on clean boxers.

Sam could explain exactly what it is; he watches Dean tap a pen against the small table, eyes on Sam. Dean still doesn't understand it, he knows. Doesn't understand what's thrumming in Sam's blood, singing through his veins, filling him to the brim on power that a mortal shell should not contain.

"It's flyin'," he begins, settling onto the bed furthest from the door. It's the bed Dean's made him take since they started hunting together. It comforts him, so he's not going to argue now. Not like anything can get into their room anyway, not anymore.

"Flying?" Dean scoffs, turning in the chair to face Sam and sprawling in what cannot actually be a comfortable position.

He nods. "I told you about the angels," he says. "About Lucifer."

He'd sort of skimmed through it, last time, what happened when he finally let Lucifer in, what happened as they fell into a fathomless void, his soul threaded through with the fallen angel's grace. Going by what Lucifer and Gabriel could do, he's barely touched the surface.

"Huh," Dean says when he trails off. "Cool."

Sam raises an eyebrow. Dean shrugs. "I'mma shower, Sammy. We'll head out in the mornin'."

.

They get breakfast at a diner and hit the road. As they drive through towns, they check the local paper and if there's nothing, they move on. It's a roadtrip with his brother, and Dean doesn't think he's ever been happier.

In the middle of June, after three and a half weeks, Sam uses his angel mojo to fly them back to the cabin, and Dean cooks their meals and Sam reads some horrible novels he'd picked up during their trip, and they watch bad SyFy movies on a TV that Dean's pretty sure isn't actually hooked up to anything.

After eight days, they hit the road in the other direction. Simple hunts, tourist traps, comparing pie between diners and towns, Sammy at his shoulder strong and warm, his baby roaring down the highway, a home they can circle back to whenever they want—

If he had to choose, this is what his happy ending would be.


	3. Chapter 3

The first demon finds them on a Tuesday. Sam really fucking hates Tuesdays. He lets Dean out of his sight for literally the first time since he killed Lilith, and a demon decides to kidnap him.

Then, he feels an angel touch down—Uriel, he thinks. The demon, now that he's looking for it, feels familiar, too.

 _Oh_ , he thinks. The demon that wore Meg Masters, the demon that slipped into his skin to fuck with Dean's head, the demon that got Jo and Ellen killed.

There's a small house on the edge of town he remembers passing by as they drove in, but it apparently isn't there now. Warding against angels or demons? Both? It doesn't matter, because that's where Dean is, and he isn't hurt, not yet except for a sore jaw from a sucker punch.

Sam wants to hurt the demon, wants to kill it slow, but Uriel is looking for his brother, and he isn't ready to show his hand by smiting an angel, however much of a dickbag the angel in question is.

So instead, he razes the house, obliterating the demon, grabs his brother, stops briefly for the car and all of their stuff, and then goes home.

.

"How'd they find us?" Sam demands once he's checked that Dean's okay. Dean mostly just looks bemused as Sam examines him for some kind of injury, but there's nothing except the bruise forming on his jaw.

"Apparently," Dean says, "they've got humans lookin' for us."

Sam stares at him. "What?"

"I know, right?" Dean shakes his head. "Not sure how they swung it, but regular dudes are on the lookout for us and if they see us, they call a tip line to report it."

"An angel was there, too," Sam tells him. He wants to wrap Dean in cotton and never let him out of the cabin, but knows that he can't.

"An angel?" Dean sits up straight in the chair, reaching for Sam. "Did he make you? You okay?"

"I'm fine, and no, I don't think so," Sam answers, keeping still so that Dean can do his own injury check. "Dean, can we just lay low for a couple days? I wanna check something out."

"Yeah, of course," Dean says, stepping back once he's satisfied Sam isn't hurt. "I'll see what we have in the pantry."

Sam tracks him with his eyes and then his mind once Dean's through the doorway. He keeps part of his consciousness focused on Dean, ready to act if anything happens, and the rest, he opens up to the angel network.

.

It's a simple brush against his grace—Michael could almost swear it's his brother, home again, save that Lucifer is still in the cage, still locked away. His grace cannot be felt. Zachariah is still prattling on about how Uriel was within moments of capturing the Righteous Man.

 _Lucifer?_ Michael whispers, grace-to-grace.

The presence is gone in an instant, and though Michael tries to follow it, he is shoved away, all of his wings flaring to catch him as he stumbles.

"Michael?" Zachariah asks.

As Michael rises, he summons his remaining brother because though Lucifer is still caged, there is something that feels like him out in the world.

"Leave," Michael orders Zachariah as Raphael touches down beside him.

"I felt it, too," Raphael murmurs. "Could it have been Gabriel?"

"I do not know." Michael gazes down at the Earth, seeking his Vessel. Wherever Dean Winchester is, though, Michael cannot feel him, as he has not been able since the night someone destroyed Lilith.

"Could it have been Lucifer's Vessel?" Raphael asks now. "Samuel Winchester has not been sighted since Lilith's demise."

"Perhaps," Michael says. "Come, brother. We must plan."

.

What Robert Singer doesn't know can't be forced out of him. Zachariah, Malachi, and Sera ask; he shouts invectives at them. They read his soul; he weeps. He begs.

Finally, Zachariah uses the mortal's phone to call the Winchesters.

"Yeah, Bobby?" the Righteous Man says.

"Dean, where y'at, boy?" Zachariah asks, using the mortal's voice. "Got a hunt for you."

The mortal is crumpled on the ground. Without a healing, he will be dead in under three human minutes.

"We've been on non-stop hunts," Dean says. "But, yeah, kick it to us."

Zachariah smiles, because this will be the trap that holds the two mudmonkey mortals who dare defy Heaven.

.

"Yeah, Bobby?" Dean says. Sam's focused on his journal, writing down what he remembers of the last two years, trying to arrange in chronological order all the hunts he and Dean had done. Those people still need to be saved and just as he's thinking _oh, shit_ because he has a _little brother_ , Dean jerks his head up and meets Sam's eyes.

"We've been on non-stop hunts," Dean says.

Bobby. Something is wrong with Bobby. Dean flicks his gaze towards the northeast, eyes narrowing, and Sam nods.

"But, yeah, kick it to us," Dean says. "Somethin's snatchin' people near Curtis, Nebraska? Okay, yeah, we'll look into it." He nods. "Yeah, I got that. Want us to swing by on our way?" Dean's brow is furrowed, his jaw clenching. "Yeah, okay. We'll let you know when we're headin' that way, if you wanna meet up for a beer or somethin'. Yeah, you, too, Bobby."

He hangs up and lets the phone fall. "It was his voice," Dean says. "Wasn't his inflections."

.

There really isn't much arguing; Dean says they'll let this play out, they'll check out Curtis, Nebraska, they'll get the lay of the land before deciding what to do.

"I bet it's Zachariah," Sam says as they pack up the Impala. "He's done this before."

"Oh, goody," Dean mutters. "Sounds like a dickbag."

Sam laughs, short and sharp. "He is."

.

"There is a real hunt," Sam says, searching the internet while the Impala eats up the miles. "Somethin's been snacking on people who pass near Curtis, going back for about fifty years."

The more details Sam pulls out, the more they throw ideas back and forth. They hit the state line and Sam calls up Bobby. "Yeah, hey," he says. "You anywhere near Vermillion? We're gonna get lunch there."

Bobby's voice says, "Yeah, just tell me where."

.

Zachariah smiles down at Robert Singer. He orders Sera, "Wipe his mind of today but leave him unharmed." Sera nods. To Malachi, Zachariah commands, "Bring Uriel and Lysis."

Smile widening, he takes wing and lands in Vermillion. Within moments, Sera, Malachi, Uriel, and Lysis are beside him.

"We must lay the trap," Zachariah says. "Begin."

.

"Dean," Sam says.

It's the tone he used when he went toe-to-toe with Dad that time Dean ran himself into the ground trying to keep the house and work two jobs and still make sure Sam made it to every afterschool thing and club he wanted. It's the tone he used when Andy did the mind-whammy on Dean. It's the tone he used more and more during what should've been Dean's last year, as the clock wound down.

In that single word, Dean hears so many things.

"I know, Sammy," he says. And, "Taco John's."

He doesn't look over. Doesn't say anything else. He's spent 24 years looking after his little brother, even after Sam grew into a man more than capable of looking after himself. But this Sam, now, from the future with some fuck-off powers? This Sam who is apparently part-archangel, part-demon, all wrapped up in a nice Sammy-shaped package?

There's a line _this_ Sam has drawn in the sand, and it neatly circles around Dean, and he can't even complain about it, because if he had the fuck-off powers, he'd be doing the exact same thing to Sammy.

Heaven and Hell have been looking for them. It was a stupid oversight for them both, to not realize that when they couldn't be found, someone would go after their friends, their allies, possibly anyone they've ever helped.

He glances at his kid brother now. Sam isn't brooding. He doesn't even look worried, or resigned. He looks over and his eyes are still smiling, like they have been for almost three months. Since he killed Ruby and Lilith, since he stared down a pack of hellhounds.

 _Dean_ , he said. A single word but Dean heard a world's worth in the syllable.

Sam's drawn his line in the sand.

"Don't risk outing yourself, Sammy," Dean says as they pull into Vermillion.

Dean's line in the sand was drawn years ago.

.

"Taco John's," Zachariah says in disgust. "How humans can stand—" He shakes his head. Malachi and Sera have woven a net around the restaurant while Lysis waits in the parking lot, ready to ensure the Winchester's vehicle will not function if they try to flee. Not that they should be able to escape once Zachariah springs the trap, but _should_ seems to matter little where the Vessels are concerned.

Uriel perches on the roof, ready to smite anyone who dares attempt to interfere. No one knows what happened with Lilith, after all, or where the Vessels have been. Perhaps they have a powerful friend—whatever it is, Uriel shall stand guard.

Zachariah, in the guise of an old mortal, settles at one of the tables. He remains invisible and tries to ignore all the humans with their noises and smells.

And then there is… a presence. Zachariah feels his grace flinch, his wings rustle where they're tucked away while he's encased in flesh and blood. He has felt its like when Michael is near, though it has been a long time since he trembled at the power.

Whatever is helping the Winchesters, Zachariah wants no part of it. But what is _want_ when the safety of Heaven is involved?

And so he remains at the table, encased in flesh and blood, and he waits.

.

They open their doors in the same instant, slide out of the car, close the doors, and stare at the bright looking restaurant. Sam glances at Dean long enough to gauge that they're also having the same thought: _Like fuck Bobby would ever meet us here._

"Think Bobby's here yet?" Dean asks, shifting in place to check that his gun is situated.

"Don't see his truck," Sam says. He flicks his gaze to the roof of Taco John's for half an instant and Dean presses his lips together.

"Might as well get food while we wait." Dean shrugs. "We did come here for lunch, Sammy."

Sam gives a petulant sigh. "Fast food _Mexican_ , Dean?" He glances towards the edge of the parking lot, where it backs up against a field.

Dean tilts his head slightly. "Aw, c'mon, don't tell me you're not hungry."

Sam sighs again. "Fine. That lady back at the gas station did say that Taco John's is her fifth-favorite Mexican place."

He can feel them, white-hot lights pressing against him, five distinct pools of grace. He's not sure if he's relieved or not that it was angels pretending to be Bobby. There's at least a good chance they left him alive, if they ever went near him at all.

"Only her fifth-favorite?" Dean laughs, stepping in front of Sam as they head for the door. "Well, we'll definitely need to check out the other four."

One angel on the roof. Another in the parking lot. Two more lurking somewhere close by. One sitting at a table.

If he can feel them—

"Gotta hit the head," he tells Dean. "Back in a sec."

He doesn't want to leave Dean out there alone with an angel, with four more so close, but he also has to tamp down his desire to rip them all to shreds. Sam looks in the mirror, imagining for just a moment that he can see the grace in his veins, mingling with Azazel's blood, with Ruby's, with all the other demons he's drained down.

This body, this body that's two years younger than him, that he's stolen from himself, that he's saved from making his mistakes—it has only Azazel's blood. But his soul? It's stained with everything else he tasted, used, took into himself.

For just a moment, staring at himself in the mirror, he sees Lucifer. He stands tall and turns away, consciously pulling his power in, damping it down. It feels almost like he's cocooned in wings that don't actually have weight, and it's fucking odd, but it's the best he can do to hide, if they don't already know, and since none of the angels have attacked yet, they must not.

He leaves the restroom without a glance at the angel in the corner table.

.

Dean waits until they're halfway through the food to call Bobby's number. He's holding his cell up to his ear and listening to it ring when he notices that Sam's gone still. It's just a split-second, only noticeable because he was already watching Sam eat his way around the bell peppers, and then Sam's body loosens again as he breathes out.

Outside, there's a minor explosion. The entire building shakes. It only takes a single glance at Sam's face to decide how to play this.

"What the fuck?" someone shouts.

Another explosion outside. "Everyone down!" Dean barks out, pulling out his _I'm in charge and you better do what I say_ tone. "C'mon, c'mon, get down!"

Sam follows him, of course.

.

Zachariah watches with incredulity as the Vessels calm all eight humans in the dining area and then the seven in the cooking area, with the lies that Dean Winchester is in the Air Force (whatever that is) and that Sam Winchester is a fireman.

The net had tightened over them as they ate the disgusting mortal food and then it had just faded away. It hit something and withered, leaving not even a single trace of its existence. Uriel then reached for the Vessels, intending to capture them, and was tossed away, banished to Heaven. Lysis, Malachi, Sera—all banished the same instant they tried to touch the Vessels.

Four explosions that should not have been because very little can stop an angel, and nothing that can has been seen in thousands of years.

 _Something_ is protecting the Winchesters. The Vessels. The Righteous Man, Michael's Sword, and Azazel's favored, the only being that can house Lucifer safely.

"It's going to be okay," Dean Winchester tells a little girl. "Don't worry." Sam Winchester reaches out to touch a boy's hand and says, "You're doin' good."

Whatever creature being entity is protecting them—Zachariah cannot defeat it alone. He scowls. Whatever dares challenge Heaven, it will be smote. Just as soon as they know what it is.

.

Sam doesn't react at all when the last angel leaves. He and Dean stay with the civilians until the authorities arrive.

All of Vermillion heard the explosions, and there are furrows in the parking lot and the field beyond it but seemingly no damage. In the midst of the confusion, Dean calls Bobby, who has no idea they were supposed to meet (obviously), so they decide to go check on him instead of the hunt in Curtis, which Bobby promises to kick to someone else. Before they can be questioned or ID'd, Dean and Sam slide back into the Impala, taking advantage of the one clear path out of the parking lot.

"Angels," Sam says as they turn the block. "They tried to grab us."

"What did you _do_?" Dean asks, sounding proud and awed at the same time. "Fuck, man."

Sam shrugs. "I just… slapped them away."

Dean laughs a little before sobering. "Think they hurt Bobby?"

Sam sighs, shaking his head. "I just don't know. I think it depends on which angel is in charge. If it's Cas-Castiel, then no, I doubt it. But if it's Uriel or Zachariah?" He scoffs.

Dean laughs again. "You're just namedroppin' angels like it's no big deal," he muses. "Man, our lives are fucked up."

"Just a little," Sam agrees, rearranging himself to be slightly more comfortable. "Are you…" he pauses, trying to find the best way to ask. "Are you sure we shouldn't tell Bobby the truth?"

 _Family don't end with blood, boy,_ Bobby said, and Sam wants to trust him, to lessen the weight he never ever wanted Dean to bear. Bobby helped the first time he went through withdrawal, Bobby went toe-to-toe with Lucifer in Sam's skin and Michael in Adam's, and he _died_ for it.

"No, Sammy," Dean says. "Just us. No one else can know."

Sam lets his head rest on the window and watches the world fly by.


	4. Chapter 4

Bobby is _livid_ once Sam finishes telling him that someone pretended to be him and then caused explosions while they were waiting for him to show up. He immediately starts delving into his books, muttering about invisible monsters that can mimic voices, while also saying, "I don't feel like I'm missing any time. You boys never saw it?"

"Nope," Dean says while Sam shakes his head.

It isn't fair at all, not telling Bobby about what might come after him again, what might chase down anyone they know and use them as bait, and Sam wishes he could feel worse about it.

Everyone they've met since Sam left Stanford, the taste of ash in his mouth, every monster, every demon, every fucking _angel_ , every hunter—"Dean's your weakness," Gabriel told him once, after killing Dean every day for so long Sam stopped counting. He knows, now, that it wasn't real, not truly, and after Gabriel died trying to stop Lucifer, he perhaps shouldn't still be so angry. "Dean's your weakness," Gabriel told him, "and the bad guys know it."

It isn't fair, not telling Bobby, not sending word out to everyone who might be in danger. But it's Dean's call.

"We should double-check all your wards," Dean says briskly. "Sammy, help Bobby with the books while I go look at the sigils, see if any of 'em are worn."

Bobby looks up from his book. "Boys, I've got somethin' to show y'all first."

.

"This is awesome!" Dean says as he explores the panic room.

Shrugging, Bobby mutters, "I had a free weekend."

Sam's feelings about the panic room are complicated, but he already knows he'll be adding angel-proofing to it, once Bobby's distracted. He is enjoying Dean's enthusiasm, though, especially since every other time they've been here, it was an emergency.

"Alright," Dean finally says, clapping his hands. "Study time, Sammy!"

Sam laughs but allows Dean to herd him the stairs, Bobby following them.

.

Dean wanders the border of the junkyard, checking on the sigils and warding Bobby has set up. He reaches out to touch one of the symbols, wincing when there's a pulse of heat against his finger that's mirrored by one on his chest. Dean glances down at his amulet, which is lit up for just a moment. It goes out but he doesn't touch the symbol again.

"Huh," he says. "Weird."

He continues along the border but doesn't touch anything else. Once he's made it around the perimeter and seen that everything is secure, he heads back into the house, where Bobby and Sam are still geeking out with the books.

He catches Sam's eye as he makes his way to the kitchen and Sam says, "I need some water. Want anything, Bobby?"

"Nah, I'm fine," Bobby mumbles, grabbing another book.

Dean's already filling a glass for Sam when steps in. "What?" he asks softly. Dean hands him the water and leans against the counter, crossing his arms. Sam pulls on his serious _tell me RIGHT NOW Dean_ face even as he sips on the water.

"What is this, Sammy?" Dean taps the amulet resting on his chest.

Sam's eyes drop and then widen; the glass slips from his fingers.

Neither of them flinch as it shatters on the floor. "Boys?" Bobby calls and Dean replies, "We're fine!"

He taps the amulet again. "What is this?"

Sam's eyes are still wide. "Did it… did it do something?"

"Something like what, Sam?" Dean asks, quite calmly, smiling.

"Um." Sam drops his gaze, draws in his shoulders, even fucking _pouts_. He looks all of seven and trying not to cry because he just broke the toy Dean had stolen for him. (He didn't, at the time, know Dean had stolen it.) "It kinda… burns in the presence of God?"

"God," Dean repeats.

"'s'what I was told," Sam says, peeking at Dean from beneath his bangs. "Never actually saw it happen." He begins to perk up. "Did it… what did it _do_ , Dean?"

Dean shrugs, shaking off his worry. "I touched one of Bobby's protective sigils out back and it lit up for a second."

"Huh." Sam steps forward and gently grabs the amulet, lifting it up to examine it. "Can you show me the sigil?"

"Yeah, tomorrow," Dean says. "Get back to the books, I'm gonna rustle up some grub."

Sam lets go of the amulet and it swings back to its place. "What about pancakes?" he asks.

"I'll see if Bobby's got the ingredients for it," Dean tells him, pushing off the counter. He steps past Sam, listening as he shuffles back and Bobby barks a question at him. Before he goes to the pantry, he brushes his forefinger gently across the amulet. "You're 'sposed'ta find God, huh?" he scoffs. "Right." Then, louder, "Chocolate chip or banana?"

After a brief pause, Sam calls back, "Can we do both?"

Dean chuckles and starts pulling ingredients out of the pantry.

.

In the morning, while Bobby's still sacked out in bed, Dean leads Sam to the sigil. Sam looks around the perimeter, seeing glowing lines that Dean can't: Bobby's warding is impressive and that's not a surprise.

What _is_ a surprise: Sam doesn't understand three of the markings, and that includes the one that Dean's fingers hover over but he doesn't touch. He can read Enochian, now, and every other language of Heaven, Earth, or Hell.

Dean lets his hand fall as Sam reaches out to brush his finger along the sigil. It glows the tiniest bit but he doesn't feel anything. "Should I touch it?" Dean asks. "See if it does something?"

"No," Sam says. He glances around the junkyard. "I'm gonna add some things out here and in the panic room." His gaze returns to the amulet he gave Dean when they were kids, the one Bobby has never seemed to recognize. He _knows_ that Bobby gave it to him but he can't actually remember ever talking with Bobby about it. The amulet Castiel said would burn hot in the presence of God, that Dean threw away after their little trip to Heaven. The amulet in Sam's pocket when he tossed himself, Lucifer, Michael, and Adam into Hell.

"Sam." Dean catches his wrist as Sam turns, hand already rising to begin tracing ancient warding spells with angel's grace, the most powerful substance Earth has ever known. Sam glances down to see Dean's iI'm the older brother and I'm gonna do anything I have to do to save your ungrateful ass, up to and including dying, and you're not gonna do a single thing to stop me/i expression. "What's the plan? How long until those dickbags head after other people?"

"Oh, shit," Sam groans, bringing his free hand up to rub at his forehead. "Um, okay, I'm gonna add the protections and then we have to head out."

"Why?" Dean asks. He crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow.

Sam sighs. "You're not gonna like it."

.

If Sam thought Dean had reacted badly the first go-round, well. He takes it worse this time, probably because there's no real emergency to distract him from feeling angry, distraught, and betrayed. It isn't that Adam got more of their dad's attention, Sam thinks, watching Dean use a crowbar on one of the junkers out back. It's the kind of attention he got, while Dean was learning how to be a soldier and raising Sam simultaneously. Adam got baseball games and family dinners, and the time he saw Dad probably didn't add up to even a full year, spread out over a few of them. Sam remembers Adam telling them, not long before the end, how he didn't consider himself having a father. But from Dean's perspective? From Dean's perspective, some other kid got what he'd wanted to have, and more importantly (because in Dean's mind, he'd always come in last place, after literally everyone else the world) what Sam should have gotten.

Sam wants to flay someone because of how _furious_ it makes him, Dean's self-worth issues. Himself, Dad, the angels, Alastair, everybody who ever made Dean doubt that he's the best person on the whole fucking planet. But this isn't the time.

So he watches, from his seat on the hood of another junker. He watches and he adds this new pain to the tally he's keeping of what he's going to take out of someone's hide sooner or later.

Finally, Dean lets the crowbar drop and stands there, chest heaving as he stares into the distance. "What happened to him?" he asks, voice thick. "You danced around it, so I know it wasn't good."

Sam hangs his head and messes with the seam of his jeans just to give his hand something to do. "He was eaten by ghouls," Sam tells his legs. Dean makes a pained noise. "And then resurrected so that Michael could use him as a meatsuit." Dean makes another noise. "And, um, then I pulled him into Hell with me."

"For fuck's sake," Dean mutters, "this kid definitely got the Winchester luck."

It shocks Sam enough to look up. There's still hurt lingering in Dean's eyes, in his slumped shoulders, but before Dean will ever be anything else, he's a big brother. "Let's go make sure the kid stays safe," he says.

"Okay," Sam agrees and pushes off the junker.

.

"Boys," Bobby says as Dean tosses the last duffle into the backseat of his baby, "I'll keep lookin' for that thing, call if you I find somethin'."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam says, leaning against the side of the car while Dean opens his own door. "We'll keep in touch this time."

Dean wants to explain, wants to apologize, but all he says is, "See you around, Bobby," meaning _goodbye_.

Sam glances at him over the top the Impala, just a hint of his usual puppy-dog eyes. But he mirrors Dean as he gets in and shuts the door, and as he turns the key, Dean says, "This is a war, Sam, isn't it?"

"It is," Sam admits with a deep, tired sigh.

Dean nods, hitting the gas. "We've got us," he says. "And we've got a kid who doesn't even know he's cursed, angels and demons riding our ass, and you with a secret so big it could crack the world open." Sam huffs, but Dean just says, "We're a danger, Sammy. And I'm not gonna risk you getting found out, because once they know?" His fingers tighten on the wheel. "Once they know, they'll figure out how to fight you."

Sam, limp in his arms, head lolling, blood on his back. Sam, still and cold. Sam, the one thing he'd ever gotten right in his entire life. Sam, gone. He can't go through that again. He won't.

"Dean," Sam tries, and Dean doesn't have to look over to know Sam's giving him that look, the one that's warm and loving, like Dean's the best thing Sam's ever seen. It isn't really new, but he hadn't seen it in years, not since Sam was little. He's getting it daily, now, and each time, it's equally weird and embarrassing, because obviously, he's done nothing to earn it.

He knows that in Sam's first go-round, he died. Went to Hell. Spent four months in the Pit (but it was longer than that, because the time-scale doesn't line up) and when he got out, nothing was ever the same. Sam seems to think he's got to make up for whatever happened, but Dean's told him (more than once) that coming back in time has definitely wiped the slate clean.

Sam's always been a stubborn little bastard, though.

"We have the general outline of a plan," Dean says. "But you know what we've always done best?"

He turns the music up louder and starts singing along while Sam mutters, "We improvise." He's smiling, so Dean counts that as agreement.

Adam Milligan. Their half-brother. Dad told him he had to kill Sammy if he couldn't save him (which, really, _the fuck,_ Dad? like he could ever really hurt Sam, much less kill him? like if Azazel had turned Sam, Dean wouldn't have just followed? fuck the world) but he couldn't even be bothered to confess he had a third son?

"What do we know about this kid?" Dean asks once they're well into the drive, ejecting the tape and kindly allowing Sam to pick another.

"Well, not much, actually," Sam admits. "The ghoul pretending to be him told me he was pre-med but thinking about becoming a nurse instead of a doctor. We didn't really delve too deep after we realized Adam was dead, and then when he came back, he was pretty pissed and sarcastic, and we had other things to worry about."

"Another little brother," Dean says, shaking his head. "Man."

.

They hit Windom mid-afternoon. While Dean picks a motel and checks them in, Sam closes his eyes, resting his head against the seat, and allows his senses to spread throughout the city. He can feel a witch near the outskirts, but she only does small magics and doesn't seem hostile towards anyone so he moves on. There's a family of 'shifters living in an apartment complex but they also feel benevolent so he decides to let them be.

Beyond a restless spirit in a house a few blocks from the Milligan home, there's nothing supernatural in Windom, which means the ghouls haven't returned yet. As best they'd determined last time, the ghouls killed the guy who helped Dad first, then Kate, and probably used her form to get Adam to come home. It shouldn't happen for over a year, but since the angels are looking for Vessels—

"Sammy?" Dean says, tapping on the window. "Come on, dude, I want a shower."

Sam steps out of the Impala and stretches. He watches Dean grab their duffles; the amulet glints in the sunlight, and there's something about it that's… different. He realizes that Dean's paused, glancing at him. "Are you coming?" he asks, trying for annoyed but sounding more worried.

"Yeah." Sam hurries over and knocks their shoulders together, and he's half a step behind Dean when they enter the motel room.

.

Sam picks up breakfast in the morning and they plan while they eat. Then Dean cleans the guns and sharpens the knives while Sam double-checks all the intel they'd found last time. Adam hasn't gone to Wisconsin yet, but he probably will in the next few weeks. "Kid's smart," Sam says, scrolling through Adam's transcript from his high school. "Looks like he thought about becoming a vet for a little while, then a marine biologist."

"Dude, how can you tell that from his grades?" Dean grumbles, now counting out their ammo.

"From the notes his teachers made," Sam says. "And his mom's a nurse, so the ghoul was probably telling the truth about Adam wanting to be one."

He remembers how it felt to take a little brother under his wing, to teach and guide him. The age difference is greater between Sam and Adam, and an entire life's worth of history is lost but it felt good. Like if he could just do a good enough job as a big brother, it could make up for how much he fucked up as a little brother.

It hurt, when Adam came back and refused to listen to Sam, refused to even try connecting. It hurt, but Sam understood.

The plan they settle on is to drop by the Milligan house late in the afternoon and tell Kate that they're John Winchester's sons. What happens next depends on her reaction.

"This is kind of a shitty plan," Sam says as he's lacing up his boots.

"Well, that's a specialty of ours, innit, Sammy?" Dean shoots back stepping into the bathroom to take a leak.

While he's washing his hands, Sam places both of his own on the wall of the room. He'd warded it last night, and again when he left Dean this morning, but he recharges it now that neither he nor Dean will be here to anchor it. Dean comes up beside him, nudging him with an elbow, and Sam wonders again if he's realized (and he probably has) that they're so much more physical now.

It's like they're checking in on each other, reassuring themselves and each other, just a brief point of contact to say _I'm here, I'm fine, it's okay._

 _I'm here, Sammy. It's okay, I'm not leaving you._

 _It's okay, Dean. I've got him._

Sam presses back against Dean, shaking away all thoughts of what Lucifer did with his hands, what Dean had thought his last words would be.

"It'll be fine, Sam," Dean murmurs, bringing a hand up to gently ruffle Sam's hair.

It _will_ be fine. Sam'll make sure of it.

.

"It's like a Stepford house," Dean says as they step out of the Impala. It just stokes the anger he's tried to tamp down because Dad left them in shitty motel rooms with barely enough cash to cover food and he came here, to play house with a second family. He had his little soldiers, so he'd come here to do the baseball and the driving lessons that didn't make a difference in life and death.

"Yeah," Sam says. "It being a Stepford house got them both killed." He gives Dean a pointed look.

Dad came here to play house and didn't even bother telling Kate how to protect herself and her kid.

"What the fuck was Dad thinking?" he mutters, stomping towards the front door, Sam at his shoulder. He knocks twice and wipes away every expression except _We got your address from our dad's notes, who are you again?_

He's angry and he's betrayed and he's worried—he doesn't know this Adam kid, hasn't raised this Adam kid, probably wouldn't trade his soul for this Adam kid's life, but this Adam kid _is_ his younger brother, and he's in more danger than probably anyone else on the planet.

A blonde woman opens the door, of course, because Dad had a type. "Are you Kate Milligan?" Dean asks.

She nods warily, still mostly behind the door, and there's someone clattering down the stairs.

Dean says, "We're John Winchester's sons."


	5. Chapter 5

Kate blinks at the two young men on her porch. "Mom?" Adam asks from behind her. He comes to stand at her back, looking over her head. "Who are you?"

The shorter one, who's done all the talking so far, says, "I'm Dean and this is Sam." He pauses, eyes flicking from Kate to Adam and back. "Winchester."

"What?" Adam says.

Kate steels herself. "Please come in," she says, stepping back from the door, pushing Adam with her. The two men—John's other sons?—follow them into the den, where Kate perches on the couch, unaccountably nervous. Adam settles beside her, his shoulders tense.

Dean and Sam both sit on the loveseat, pressed so close together it looks like their legs are touching all the way to the floor. "You're John's sons?" Kate asks, looking from one to the other. They're both big, John's size or larger, in their mid-to-late 20s. "He never mentioned you," she adds.

The shorter one, Dean, blondish-brown hair and large hazel eyes, flinches slightly. "Well," he says, voice cold, "he never told us about y'all either."

Sam, the taller one, is impassive, a wall of coiled muscle. "We're here, ma'am," he says, voice colder than his brother's, "because you and your son are in danger."

"In danger?" Adam demands. "John Winchester hasn't been here in two fucking years or more. What kind of danger could we be in?"

"He's dead," Sam says dispassionately. Even though she'd been expecting it, it still hurts, a little. Sam isn't looking at either of them, as far as she can tell. "Do you know what kind of work he was in?"

Kate grabs Adam's hand before he says anything. "John was a bounty hunter." She doesn't believe it now any more than she did 20 years ago.

They share a glance, these men who have pieces of Adam in their bone structure, their attitudes. "Yeah, let's go with that," Dean says, voice thawing a little. "Well, I don't know how well you remember Dad, but he had a way of making enemies."

Adam scoffs, muttering, "You don't say."

Dean's lips quirk, barely, but it's not really a smile. "Thing is," he says, "there are some very bad people who want to hurt Dad, but Dad is gone. So they'll go after his family instead." He gestures between himself and Sam. "See, we can take care of ourselves. We've been in the life since we were kids. So we'll be fine."

"But you two?" Sam continues. "You're just helpless meat, waiting to be devoured."

Those words, in his cold, implacable tone, are terrifying. He just looks at her, not a hint of gentleness or regret on his face.

"What the fuck?" Adam demands, jumping to his feet. "Don't you dare talk to Mom like that!"

Neither of them reacts. "We don't want to scare you" Sam says after a moment. "But unfortunately, you _are_ in danger and our duty is to protect you."

Adam glares at them, fists clenched. "We don't need anything from you," he bites out. "We don't _want_ anything from you."

"Well, that's too bad, kid," Dean practically snarls, lunging to his feet. Kate hadn't thought her boy small in years, but as Dean looms over him, glaring, Kate wants to jump between them, protect her child.

"Because you _are_ my brother," Dean continues, tone still fierce. "And there's somethin' after you that you won't recognize 'til it starts eating you alive."

Adam steps backward and Kate rushes to her feet, shoving Adam behind her. To her shock, Dean's expression softens, and suddenly, he seems far less intimidating. She asks, "Can't we go to the police?" Adam is trying to get back in front of her, but she keeps moving with him because there's something in Dean's body language that says he'll be kinder to her. She wouldn't be able to articulate it, really, but she's learned how to read the way people stand, the way they sit; it's the most important lesson she's picked up from nursing.

(The reason Sam terrified her, she'll admit later, is because she couldn't read him at all.)

Dean shakes his head. "The guy after y'all, he's got connections everywhere." He spreads his hands and shrugs. "You have to let us protect you, ma'am. Please."

She remembers how she met John, those scratches that didn't match any animal or weapon she knew. The way he talked around how it happened, or how he took her up on her invitation and had new wounds.

Kate turns to look at Adam. She knew then and she knows now that John was mixed up in something. So she looks back at Dean. "Tell me the truth," she says. "Please."

Dean pauses, glancing from her to Adam, and then he shifts enough to look at Sam, where they have entire conversation with just their eyes and facial expressions. Finally, Dean looks back at her. "You're not gonna believe it," he says quietly. "But okay, we'll tell you."

.

Adam loses it three times during the explanation, ordering them out, shouting that they're crazy, but Kate keeps her gaze on Dean, and he clearly believes everything he's saying. He even pulls out that notebook she remembers John writing in a few times.

Sam stays on the loveseat while Dean talks. He's slumped into the cushion, head tilted, like he's mentally a thousand miles away. It should be reassuring.

Kate has had five cats in her life and she knows exactly how dangerous they can be when they look like they're not paying attention.

"How're you gonna prove all this shit?" Adam demands once Dean falls silent. "You think we're just, just gonna fall in line, let you take us somewhere? Fuck that! Fuck you!"

"Adam!" Kate says. It honestly looks like her son is going to take a swing at Dean.

And then everything in the den that no one is sitting on suddenly rises three feet in the air. "There are ghouls that want to eat you both," Sam announces, uncoiling and rising to his feet, eyes and voice cold. "There are angels who will trick Adam into allowing one of them to slide inside him and wear him like a suit. If that happens, it might destroy most of the planet." He stops just behind his brother, eyes on Kate before sliding toward Adam. Everything floats back to its place. "We have a safe place for you. It'll put your life on hold until we know how to make the angels back off, but you'll _have_ a life."

Kate has to look away from his eyes, so she focuses on Dean to see if it's the truth.

"Mom?" Adam whispers, leaning into her, grabbing for her hand.

"It'll be like witness protection," Dean says reassuringly. "Just until it's safe."

.

"Bobby," Dean says when the grizzled man who looks like a trucker opens the door. "This is Kate Milligan and her son Adam. Kate and Adam, this is Bobby Singer."

"This is bullshit," Adam mutters as he trails after Kate. They've both got what Sam called _Enochian protective sigils_ carved into their ribs, which apparently will keep every angel from finding them.

"Thank you for letting us stay here, Mr. Singer," Kate says.

"Eh, it's no trouble," he says. "Call me Bobby, ma'am. Um. I cleared two of the upstairs bedrooms for y'all." He looks nervous, which paradoxically makes Kate's nerves settle a little.

"Well, we gotta head back out," Dean says. "Bobby, we'll be in touch." He nods to Kate, but his gaze lingers on Adam.

Sam nods, too, and they're both out the door before Kate can think of what to say.

Bobby sighs heavily. "C'mon," he says. "I'll give y'all the tour."

It's completely insane, but she can't risk that they're wrong, Dean and Sam Winchester, because Adam's life hangs in the balance. "Hopefully, this won't be for that long," she tells them both, Adam and Bobby. "We don't want to bother you."

Adam's already drifting towards the books, his inborn need to know everything taking over. It'll be a nice distraction for at least a few weeks. And since she can't go to work, Kate'll be able to catch up on her shows, maybe get back into the books she used to read all the time.

"It's no trouble," Bobby repeats. "Let me show you where to put your stuff."

Adam hefts most of the bags and trails them up the stairs.

"Have you known Dean and Sam long?" Kate asks.

Bobby laughs. "Since they were little," he says. "I got some embarrassin' stories about those boys."

"I'd love to hear them," Kate says.

Looking back at her as he starts down the hall, Bobby smiles. "Well, I might just tell you a few."

Four days ago, Kate was preparing to move her son to college, signing up for extra shifts as a distraction, had a date with George from the pediatric unit.

Now… now she's moving into a stranger's house for the foreseeable future, and Adam's changed his registration to online classes. They can't leave the property, apparently, because there'll be humans looking for them, and the sigils on their ribs won't hide them from humans.

Adam drops her suitcase on the bed and Kate throws her arms around him, squeezing as tight as she can. "I love you, baby," she whispers.

He hugs her back. "I love you too, Mom."

To protect her son, Kate will do anything she needs to, and that includes hiding out with someone she doesn't know. Her entire world has been thrown into chaos, but it's for Adam's sake, which is all that matters.


	6. Chapter 6

They leave South Dakota in the rearview and don't talk for the first fifty miles. Sam watches the world pass by and listens to the angels, briefly, and then starts going through his mental list of everyone they saved in those two years, between Lilith and the Pit. He'll need to feed some of those hunts to Bobby, probably.

Dean asks, "You hungry? There's a place with good chicken near here."

"I could eat," Sam says, turning so he can look at Dean's profile instead of the endless hills.

They're quiet while they wait for a table, quiet while they peruse the menu, quiet after they order, quiet while they wait for the food. Sam's content with the silence but he can see words building up in Dean's mouth, in the way he can't sit still, in the way his gaze keeps flicking to Sam and away. When he was younger, he'd have badgered Dean 'til the words poured out, would've demanded them before Dean was ready. Dean could wait forever, to hear what Sam had to say, but Sam never had that much patience.

It's amazing, what your brother trading his life for yours, what unleashing Lucifer on the world, what tossing yourself into the Pit will do to a person. Sam's felt uncomfortable in his skin since the growth spurt that had him shoot up nearly a foot in less than a year. He learned to use his size, and how to camouflage it, but he just kept growing. He had to continually relearn.

And now, sitting at a little family diner in a little nowhere town in Bumfuck, Iowa, watching Dean work himself towards something, Sam can feel how connected every part of him is. Archangel grace and demon blood, threaded through his veins, all the way into his bones.

He's been watching Dean his whole life, except for four years (and four months), and he thought of his brother every day they were apart, worried about him, prayed for him, griped about him. He learned how to be a good person because of Dean, learned how to intimidate, learned how to pull on innocence. Dad taught Dean to fight, to shoot, to hunt, and then Dean taught Sam. Sam called their father Dad, but whenever he was in school and teachers talked about parents, he thought about Dean.

He needed those four years, and he knows Dean did, too, but he wouldn't be able to do it now.

"You could get out," Dean finally says, more playing with his food than eating it.

"I don't want to," Sam says. He catches Dean's gaze. "Dean. I promise. There is nowhere I would rather be. I spent two years alone despite being beside you, because everything was utterly fucked, and I hated it." There's a demon lurking in the kitchen, so without looking away from Dean, Sam swipes at it. He hears the panic when the meatsuit collapses and Dean goes to turn, so Sam reaches out to catch his wrist.

" _Dean_ ," he says again. "I had normal. Even if I were to walk away now, I wouldn't be able to do anything but worry about you." He instantly knows it's the wrong thing to have said, even though Dean's expression doesn't change. "That didn't come out right," he says. "Shit."

Dean pastes a smile on. "Take your time," he says, jerking his arm away from Sam's hand.

They both push their chicken around on the plate. Dean keeps his gaze on his plate; Sam keeps his gaze on Dean. Finally, he says, "Dean. Please." Maybe it's unhealthy, but he feels like half a person whenever they're apart.

"Okay, Sammy," Dean murmurs.

.

"So," Dean says as they settle back into the car. "Tell me about your favorite class at Stanford."

And once Sam has finished a rant about his least-favorite professor, Dean says, "Tell me about your favorite hunt."

And once Sam's finished talking about a routine salt-and-burn, like any other, except it was him and Dean, back when Sam was barely 17, Dean says, "Tell me what's on your bucket list."

He knows that Sam is humoring him, doesn't know why Dean wants to listen to him ramble. But it's soothing, hearing Sam jump from tangent to tangent, following his thoughts, mentally finishing the sentences that Sam leaves dangling.

Dean takes the turnoff not long after sunset, and Sam's talking about the Marinas Trench and all the shit that lives down there. As he pulls in and parks the Impala, Sam says, "You're not keeping me against my will, Dean. And I don't want to keep you against yours. These past few months, it's been the happiest time I can remember. And I know you don't want to talk about our feelings or cry into tea, whatever." Dean keeps staring out the windshield, even as he leans slightly towards Sam. "All I want, Dean, literally the only thing in this shithole of a world I want is for you to see yourself how I do."

"I don't know how to do anything else," Dean confesses, sliding his palms along the wheel. "But you could do so many other things, Sammy."

Sam sighs. "If you need me to, I'll tell you every day that there is nowhere else I want to be, nothing else I want to do."

"No chick flick moments, dude," Dean says. He clears his throat. "Well, I'm beat. I'm goin' to bed." He practically rockets out of the car.

Sam catches up while Dean is opening the panic room door. "I'mma shower," he says. "Is it—"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean mutters dropping his shirt onto the floor. "I know you'll have a nightmare if I'm not there to chase it away. Just try not to stomp too loud, okay?"

Sam's laughing softly as he pads down the hall. Dean takes great care in arranging the nest of blankets and pillows, and then stares at the ceiling, listening to the pipes as the water rushes by.

He doesn't fall asleep until Sam settles beside him.

.

In the morning, as Dean tosses Sam a pack of Pop-Tarts, he says, "I want to find a couple junkers to work on."

"Well, let's find a salvage yard," Sam says, opening the packet. "And a used bookstore."

"Sounds like a plan." Dean digs through the fridge. "Orange juice or lemonade?"

"Dude," Sam scoffs. "You know the only thing that goes with Pop-Tarts is milk."

.

They spend the day driving around the area, exploring more in-depth than they have before. Sam buys nearly the entirety of the used bookstore they find and Dean sees a few books that look interesting, so he tosses them in with Sam's haul. After lunch, they check out every salvage yard in driving distance. Dean negotiates a dirt-cheap price at three separate yards for five junkers that are essentially beyond hope, and tells the manager that he'll deal with transport himself.

He shares a smirk with Sam at the first place and later that night, after the Impala and all the books have been deposited back at the cabin, Sam teleports ( _it's not teleportation, Dean, we've been over this_ ) them back to each salvage yard to grab the junkers.

For the next few weeks, they stay at the cabin. While Dean works on one of the cars, Sam makes himself comfortable on the hood of another and reads his way through a murder mystery series, sometimes aloud, if there's a particularly hilarious passage or he's just mystified that something so obvious actually got published. There's the one day where Dean has Sam stay beside him and explains every single thing he does to the car and gives Sam a pop-quiz on car parts. Another day, Sam experiments with his abilities from Azazel (and every other demon he drank from) and Dean keeps notes for him because he knows Sam'll pore through the books in Pastor Jim's library later.

Dean even gives Sam a couple cooking lessons, though Sam's still shit at it. Every night as they eat, they trade off picking movies to watch, and they each try their best to annoy the other with their choices.

It's just a rest from the world, from hunting, from monsters and stress and violence. From worrying about angels and demons chasing them, from having to think about their long-lost, secret brother.

Finally, though, on the 25th day, Dean stands on the porch and looks out over the landscape.

"Time to get back to it?" Sam asks from just behind him, intentionally letting his too-long, still wet from the shower hair drip onto Dean.

"Yeah," Dean says. The road's calling to him. "You got that list of hunts, right?" He huffs as the water soaks into his shoulder and shoves backward into Sam, knocking him off balance with a laugh. "Pack up your shit, Sammy. Wheels' rollin' in ten."

.

Sam triggers the wards as Dean turns onto the highway. "You want the shapeshifter, the siren, the magician killing people, or the prophet who turned our lives into books?"

Dean groans. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Let's take the prophet first."


	7. Chapter 7

Two interludes, written for the prompts: **Class** & **Casting**

* * *

"So," Sam says, "I took this folklore class my sophomore year, thinkin' it'd be an easy A but also at least a bit interesting." He stays slouched in his seat, turned slightly to watch Dean, who is completely in his element, with his car and the open road, and even though he's completely focused on driving, Sam knows he's listening. Sam knows he wants to hear.

"Dr. Clarke," Sam says, "was this old fart who thought he was the smartest guy in the world." Dean smirks slightly but stays silent. "God, he must've been in his 80s, man, and he had this droning voice. He hated it whenever people asked questions."

Dean's smirk widens, so Sam knows he's already gotten the punchline. "I asked questions every class," Sam says with deep satisfaction. "This one time, he told us about werewolves, right, and he literally recited the wolfman movie."

Dean's laugh booms out and Sam has to laugh, too; he can't not laugh when Dean laughs.

"I sat there horrified, Dean, and the kids around me were takin' notes because his asinine lecture would definitely be on the test." It was an entire semester he'd never get back. "I didn't write a single thing after the first class, but I still went to every single one and I sat there and I made sure to poke holes in his logic, and god, he _hated_ me."

Dean laughs. "I can picture it, Sammy."

Sam grins widely. "Dude. I gotta tell you about the final exam." He pauses. "I met Jess on the way to it," he says. "I was late. And Dr. Clarke docked 20 points right off the bat."

Dean glances at him. Sam waits for the question about Jessica and he'll answer if Dean asks. But instead, Dean say, "Tell me you schooled that fuckwad."

Sam cackles. "I gave every one of those questions the right answer and it was only course I failed."

Dean chuckles. "You're such a smartass, Sammy." He sounds so fond, so proud, and Sam basks in it.

Because he wants to keep the atmosphere, Sam continues complaining about Dr. Clarke, and he makes Dean laugh a dozen more times, and even though he knows Dean still doesn't really believe Sam wants to be here, that Sam won't leave again, he feels just for these few moments, in the car with Dean, eating up miles, heading to their home, he feels so at peace.

He'll do whatever it takes to keep it.

.

.

.

Heaven resounds with questions, all of them variations on _What protects the Winchesters? How has the Righteous Man escaped Hell?_

After Zachariah, Malachi, Lysis, Uriel, and Sera report to Michael, theories are formed from their descriptions. To his embarrassment, Zachariah and his lieutenants are dismissed so that the archangels and their fellows can plan.

Zachariah rages, angry as he has not ever been in all his eons. Uriel, Malachi, and Lysis join him, but Sera leaves—to see Joshua, Zachariah assumes, as they were part of the same choir for a time. He spares it little thought.

Time passes. Zachariah is given other tasks, but his failure—and his fear in that human diner—lingers.

Every angel feels when Raphael thunders down to Earth because something threatens his charge and when he returns, Raphael's anger shakes Heaven. Michael appears suddenly and Raphael announces, "I felt Lucifer."

Michael immediately replies, "But he is still caged." With a glance around, at the nervous and confused angels, to Zachariah's immense disappointment, Michael says, "Let us speak elsewhere, brother."

And they both are gone, as rumors begin to spread through Heaven.


	8. Chapter 8

And here's the last part I have completed. I have a basic idea of what I want to happen but I think I need to actually sit down and plot it out.

Note: I have slightly changed how the Supernatural books/Chuck are handled because canon doesn't make sense to me. (And after skimming the wiki about Chuck, uh, yeah. That doesn't happen here.)

Note take 2: I would appreciate feedback on whether to keep dancing on the unhealthy codependency but not quite wincest line or if I should just go ahead and cross it.

Another note: I don't know if anyone on here follows me at A03 or tumblr, but a lot of shit has happened in my life the past year or so, which is one of the reasons I stopped posting here. Long story short: I almost didn't get my Masters last year because I was stabbed in the back by somebody, my state nearly drowned in a 500-year flood, I am now in a Ph.D. program, my apartment caught fire, and my cat died. So, yeah.

* * *

"This makes no sense," Chuck mumbles, highlighting and deleting an entire page because it's like the characters have minds of their own and they're not even listening to him anymore. Which is insane, since he created them. Or something. Because it's one thing to have a trickster god that's secretly an archangel mess with reality, but to have his up-til-now totally normal human with premonitions (and maybe a dose of demon blood, though Chuck still hasn't decided how he'll actually explain that away, and thankfully, the very few fans his piece of shit books have are happy to make up their reasons) suddenly have the same abilities as the trickster god that's secretly an archangel? He keeps having to revise and revise and revise, and his publisher was so angry that he actually sent Jack to Hell at the end of _No Rest for the Wicked_ that he almost showed her the second (first?) version, where somehow Dan had enough juice to actually _kill_ Lilith, even though he knows Lilith wasn't supposed to die for a long time.

He's skipped ahead, it seems like; Dan and Jack shouldn't already know about their half-brother, and why the fuck are there suddenly angels? The angels don't come in until Jack goes to Hell, but Jack _hasn't_ gone to Hell, and it feels like Chuck is losing his mind.

"Alright, that's enough for today," Chuck mutters, slamming his laptop shut without even saving the changes.

.

Every time Chuck sits down to write, things just get more confusing. He's completely lost track of the timeline and for the first time, he's actually glad that the funding fell through because he has no idea how he could turn this into a cohesive narrative. It's like there's two different stories playing in his head, sometimes overlapping but mostly not.

He's laid upstairs in his bed with a migraine the morning there's a knock at the door for the first time in days.

He really shouldn't have answered it.

.

"Hi," the taller of the two ginormous men says, smiling widely. Chuck's fairly sure it's supposed to be a smile. It looks kind of like a snarl. "You're the author of the _Supernatural_ books, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Chuck says, looking from to the other. They… look like Dean and Sam, from back when Chuck first started having the dreams, before he changed the names to Jack and Dan.

"I'm Sam," the taller one says. Tilting his head to the left, he continues, "This is my brother, Dean. Winchester."

It is completely and totally impossible because those are names he never told anyone, names he never even wrote down once the words started spilling out.

"Can we come in, man?" Dean Winchester asks with a wide (fake, so very very fake) smile. "We should talk."

.

"I'm sorry!" Chuck yelps, watching as Dean Winchester paws through the stack of books Chuck couldn't even pay people to take. "I didn't know you were real!"

"What the fuck is this?" Dean demands, picking up _Route 666_. "Dude! That was private."

"And I didn't know it was really happening!" Chuck says.

Sam Winchester has somehow gotten his hands on Chuck's laptop, even though he only looked away for a second, and is scrolling through the current draft.

Fuck, Chuck's head hurts.

"You know, we haven't dealt with that siren, yet," Sam says, glancing over at Chuck. "But here, you have us beating the shit out of each other because of it. And Ruby's still enabling my demon blood addiction."

"Which is still so gross," Dean mutters, having discarded _Route 666_ for _Humans Are Crazy_. "What the Hell?" he asks, loudly enough that Sam turns so that he and Chuck both watch Dean toss the book in Chuck's direction, and Chuck has to dodge so it doesn't hit his head. "Dude, that crazyass cannibal family was weeks before the tulpa and those wanna-be Ghostbusters."

"I know," Chuck says, backing up in case Dean wants to throw more things at him, though he's pretty sure he'd have to leave the room entirely to actually avoid it. "But, it just didn't make sense from a narrative perspective to have the, the shadow-demons and that freak witch thing that fed on kids so far apart, since both were so important for the family angle."

Dean and Sam both just _look_ at him, and he's written whole pages about how scary that look is. He had no idea it's even scarier than he'd imagined. "The family angle?" Dean repeats, and that's his dangerous tone, the one that's echoed in Chuck's dreams for two fucking years now.

"I didn't know it was real!" Chuck shouts again. "I'm sorry, guys, please don't kill me."

Dean rolls his eyes, going back to the books. "We're not gonna kill you, idiot."

But Chuck looks back at Sam in time to see that Sam hasn't totally decided yet. "Why are you writing it this way?" he asks, and even through the throbbing in his brain, Chuck knows that if he doesn't answer this the right way, Sam Winchester is going to kill him.

"Because it's the version that makes more sense," Chuck says. He shudders as Sam finally pulls that assessing gaze away, focusing back on the screen.

"Last time," Sam says, "you used our real names. What's different?"

Chuck shrugs. He really wants to drown himself in beer, but he's too frightened to lower his guard even more with these two in his house. If everything he's seen is real… he shudders again, because Sam and Dean are _utterly terrifying_. "It just didn't seem right," he says. "Like, I don't know. Too intimate or something. I had to write it down, but I didn't want—" He shrugs again. Maybe a part of him knew it was real? Honestly, the way this day is going, part of him knowing it was real but not telling the rest of him wouldn't be a surprise at all.

"Well, keep doing it like this," Sam says. He pushes back from the table and stands, and then in like seriously only three steps, he's across the room and looking at the stack of books. He's so fucking tall, it just isn't fair.

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Chuck agrees immediately. "This version makes more sense anyway."

"Are you kidding me?" Sam suddenly demands, spinning in place to glare at Chuck with _Roadhouse Blues_ in his hand. "How the fuck haven't any of hunters found out about this?"

Chuck shrinks back. "I don't know, they just haven't?" he tries, pulse racing in fear.

And then Sam glances towards the ceiling. "Dean, we gotta go," he says, dropping the book as he reaches to grab Dean's shoulder and they're both gone.

Just… gone. He's dreamed about Sam being able to teleport, and typed out a description once before deleting the entire passage but to actually see it in real life?

(Assuming, of course, that this isn't just a very vivid dream, but the dreams have always been kinda… dreamy? Hazy? Like he's seeing it through a veil or something, and this entire afternoon has been so fucking sharp and clear he's gotta be awake.)

"Definitely need a drink," Chuck mutters. He's not writing anything today, no fucking way.


	9. Chapter 9

Note: anything we learned about the canon hierarchy and history of both Hell and Heaven post-season 6 is ignored here because I haven't gotten that far yet.

Also note: for this fic, I have the semblance of a plan! And the semester is DONE except for grading 25 more papers. I've been rewatching key episodes from seasons 1 – 5 for this fic, and I finished season 6, which is as far as I've ever seen but I have seasons 7 – 11 all lined up to go.

Also another note: um. I started this fic as a fluffy fix-it, but there might definitely be darkish stuff coming? I'll update the tags and make a point to add warnings on the actual chapters, but just be aware, yeah?

* * *

In the depths of Hell (though not the furthest depths, where the most beautiful of all archangels remains trapped in a Cage), the Co-Kings meet. Hell has been divided betwixt them and the border is maintained with continuous bloody battle.

Alistair and Crowley have loathed each other since Crowley clawed his way to stand at Lilith's right hand as the King of the Crossroads; Alistair had been content in his workroom, with his razors and his racks, feared throughout the Pit—save by Crowley. When Alistair sought the throne in the wake of Lilith's death, only Crowley dared challenge him.

After decades of what constitutes (for Hell) an uneasy peace, the Co-Kings meet. Alistair's wings flare, dark and ragged, all that remains of what he was when Lucifer carved out Hell for those who Fell with him. No one, not even Alistair, remembers what his name had been in Heaven. Crowley, in comparison, is a mere infant who dares to think himself equal; that Lilith had allowed him the pretense disgusted Alistair, and he expended his rage on a thousand souls.

At this meeting, where they dance back and forth with words while their factions scream and bleed over brimstone, Alistair does not mention the overtures a seraph has made, insinuating that should help be provided in locating the Winchesters, it would be remembered once the War begins. Crowley does not mention that he's had hellhounds tracking the Winchesters since mere weeks after Lilith's demise, or that his minions on Earth have been reporting on Sam Winchester's impossible abilities.

When they return to their halves of Hell, recalling their forces from the border, a peace falls on Hell as Crowley and Alistair agree to turn their gaze on Earth and then Heaven.

(Both of them know the other will betray them, just as they know they will betray the other. But until Lucifer is free or Sam Winchester takes the throne only Crowley seems to realize he can definitely claim, Hell is better served if the Co-Kings do not wage war on each other.)

Orders are sent to every demon: locate but do not harm Sam Winchester. Locate and eradicate Dean Winchester. (Crowley modifies his: locate and capture Dean Winchester— _alive_ , if not unharmed.)

.

They just drive, drifting from town to town. They take care of a pair of witches (definitely the evil kind) and have a serious talk with a potential rugaru (and Sam puts him and his wife in a kind of witness protection, after offering to make the beast inside him sleep) and there's a couple basic salt and burns, and a nest of non-vegetarian vampires, and then they circle back to the cabin. Rinse, repeat.

Dean calls Bobby to check up on their brother but things are going fine. They interrogate and kill three demons in three states; Crowley and Alastair have apparently divided Hell right down the middle. Alastair wants to release Lucifer and Crowley doesn't.

"Dude," Dean asks after the third meatsuit has lost consciousness, even as he gently lays the boy on the floor, "why do you hate Alastair so much? I mean, I get hatin' Yellow-Eyes, but what'd Alastair do?"

Sam stares down at him, completely and utterly still, eyes blank. "He hurt you," Sam says. He sounds distant, hollow. Wherever his mind is, it isn't here with Dean. Wherever he is—Dean is unbearably glad that he won't experience it, but also so fucking angry that Sam has.

"C'mon, Sammy," Dean says, trying to shake him out of it. "Let's get this kid to the hospital and scram."

.

Sam makes sure they do some of the hunts from the first go-round and points Bobby toward the rest. They do the wishing well again, just for Dean's reaction to the teddy bear, because that's one of the few memories he actually enjoys from that terrible year. Even though he tells Bobby to spread the word that they've melted down the Babylonian coin (which has, in the past, wiped entire towns off the map), he actually pockets it and then buries it at the bottom of his duffle bag.

Dean catches his eye after he hangs up, but waits until they're on the road to say, "That a good idea, Sammy?"

He shrugs, tapping out a patter on his thigh. "I don't know," he admits. "But…"

"I get it," Dean says.

Dean doesn't, not really, Sam knows. He can't. He hasn't lived those utterly absurd two years, and he's not going to, even if Sam has to wipe out every last angel. (It frightens him, knowing down to his bones what he'd do, so he avoids thinking about it.)

They're in a holding pattern, him and Dean. The angels are working on something and either Crowley or Alistair (or both?) has a Gate of his own, because more and more demons are on Earth, searching and searching. Sam secretly sends a few books Bobby's way, with lore on how to guard against angels, and word is sent along the proper channels to up all protections against demons.

Sam practices his demonic powers 'til he has a precision and punch that he's pretty sure Azazel would've salivated at, and once that's down, he begins to systematically figure out what all an archangel can do.

Dean's reaction is so different, it almost gives Sam whiplash, sometimes. When Sam first started getting visions, it weirded Dean out 'til it just become part of the routine and seemed to fit neatly into Dean's _gotta take care of Sammy_ schema. The telekinesis really only popped up that one time, so it didn't matter.

But when Dean came back from Hell and Sam was exorcising demons with his mind? Didn't react when demons used their own powers on him? Was angry and on a hair-trigger all the time?

When it was happening, when Sam was so wrapped up in Ruby, addicted to the sheer rush of power, he couldn't see Dean's reaction for what it was: Dean's life-long need to protect Sam mixed up with his own trauma and knee-jerk reaction to despise anything demonic. And then there were the angels.

Yeah, it was an all-around shitshow.

But this time, Dean's just as proud as when Sam picked up Spanish, when he finds the twist in a case, when Sam was finally able to pin Dean, way back when Dean taught him to fight. This time, there's no shadow hanging over them, no four months (40 years) of grief and pain and rage. This time, Dean calls out advice and ideas, and it's ifun/i, it's just another kind of training, something else to master.

Sam saw a handful of angels in meatsuits and to be honest, their powers seemed to about equal to a demon's. (Sam had wondered, once, when Zachariah nearly got Dean to give in to Michael, if he could kill angels the way he had demons, the way Alastair and Lilith and even Famine went.) Demons, he noticed, had a little more creativity, except for Gabriel. Gabriel's might was a little terrifying, in a way none of the demons ever seemed to be.

It'll take a long time for Sam to learn the intricacies Gabriel manages, time he probably won't have since he's not actually an angel or a demon. Although…

"Dean," he says, turning to look at his brother. "If the angels and demons want us to be meatsuits for the Apocalypse, does that mean they won't let us die?"

Dean blinks at him and then tilts his head. He uses a gun to save his place in the book and leans back into his chair.

They've got a folding table set up in the field behind the cabin and camp chairs to sit in, and a cooler with bottled water waiting in the shade. It's quiet out here, save for the rustling of the grass in the wind and birds.

"I have absolutely no idea," Dean says after a moment's thought.

"Ah, well," Sam says. He turns back to what he was doing, trying to summon only three particular stones Dean hid earlier, instead of all of the rocks in sight. "We'll worry about that when we come to it."


	10. Chapter 10

So, I'm going to have one of the canon hunts go sideways because of the butterfly effect. Any requests for which hunt it is?

* * *

It isn't until Sam is listening in to the angels one morning while Dean's driving them towards what is probably another pagan god eating people (and, seriously, what is it with pagan gods and eating people?) that he remembers that kid, Jesse something, who was frighteningly powerful and didn't even know it.

 _The Cambion should be found_ , one of the angels intones and Sam sits up straight in his seat, startling Dean. _We must discover a way to control his potential._

"Sammy?" Dean asks, but Sam shushes him, listening intently as orders are given in Heaven.

"He doesn't have his powers yet," Sam mutters. "Fuck, he's wide open."

"Sam?" Dean says.

Jesse was frighteningly powerful, in a way totally unlike anything else Sam had ever met because it was all unconscious. He didn't know it was there. "What town was that?" Sam mutters. "Fuck, I can't remember." He turns to look at Dean, who is about ready to pull the car onto the shoulder. "Dean, we gotta go somewhere immediately."

"Okay," Dean agrees, glancing in the rearview before hitting the brakes, shifting back into park, and turning the ignition off.

Sam focuses on Jesse, on his blind faith in Dean, on his shock at transforming Castiel into a toy and then they're _there_ , in front of that house, which looms exactly as forebodingly as it did last time. He _reaches_ , spreading his senses throughout the town and there's one bright spot. Sam has no idea how to shield a stranger the way he has himself and Dean but he figures it can't be much different and he has to do it _right now_.

When he finally blinks back into awareness, Dean is patiently waiting in the driver's seat. "So, where are we and why, Sammy?"

"There's a kid we gotta help," he says. "He's, like, the Anti-Christ or something?"

"Okay, why not," Dean says. "Well, it's the middle of the day so he's probably at school. Who's after him?" He turns the ignition and Sam can see the grin that always brightens his face at the engine roaring.

Sam scoffs. "Everyone."

.

Because Dean is Dean, they get the same motel room they did the first time. Dean drops his bag onto the bed closest to the door then settles beside it, crosses his arms, and stares up at Sam.

"Okay, so, there's this kid named Jesse," Sam starts. He has to backtrack a couple of times and also goes off on a tangent once, but when he's done, there's that same protectiveness in Dean's gaze.

"We gotta help him," Dean says. "What can we do?"

.

They toss ideas back and forth until late afternoon but nothing seems like it might work. Until Jesse's powers wake up, he won't be able to hide, and when Sam leaves town, the shield will fall unless Sam constantly focuses on maintaining it, which he won't—because having his attention divided like that would weaken him (Dean's reason) and because it might affect the shield on Dean (Sam's reason).

But Jesse is entirely too dangerous to just leave out in the open, and it isn't like they can kidnap him and stash him somewhere warded all to hell.

"What about the trickster?" Dean finally says. "He's secretly an angel, right? But a little less of a dick than the rest?"

"Oh, he was entirely a dick," Sam scoffs, "but he did pull through in the end." He slumps back onto his bed and stares at the ceiling, working through multiple ways that summoning Gabriel could end badly. "Okay," he finally says, pushing himself back up.

There's really no point in talking to Jesse before he actually has powers, because there's way to prove any explanation they have. But offering him up to Gabriel? Bringing himself and Dean to Gabriel's attention?

"Okay," he says again. "Let's get dinner and then find a good spot for a summoning."

.

Because he doesn't want to piss Gabriel off from the beginning, he doesn't lay a trap of holy oil. They're in an unused warehouse on the edge of town that Sam has warded against everything, leaving just one hole for something to eel through. If Gabriel answers the summons, Sam's going to seal it up tight.

Gabriel will be able to punch his way out but nothing will be able to get in or hear what's said, which is all that matters.

He starts with shouting, "Hey, tricksters out there—could the one from the mystery spot pop in, please?" He intentionally does not look back when Dean snorts. "I know you can hear me!" Sam continues. "You killed my brother over 100 times, but I'll forget that if you come talk with me!" He won't forget it, actually. But he also probably won't go after Gabriel for it, not since Gabriel tried to fight Lucifer.

Behind him, he can feel how Dean tenses. Sam'd been a wreck when they left that Wednesday. It's years ago for him, but months for Dean. He wasn't ever pissed at Gabriel for all the Tuesdays he died; he was pissed because Gabriel did it to Sam. Because it hurt Sam. (Sam never told him the lengths he went to, hunting the trickster. Even if it was all an elaborate game like the TV shows, it _felt_ real. He never even hinted to Dean about what he became. And if Ruby hadn't been there after Lilith—)

"Loki!" he tries next. "I have an idea for what could be your greatest trick!" He pauses, waits. When there's no response, he shouts again, "Loki! If you don't get here soon, I might have to start praying to some of your brothers, and I might even use the name your father gave you." If there's a bit of menace in his tone, well. Gabriel had been a bit of a dick.

It's a little itch at the back of his mind, similar to how Michael and Raphael felt when they brushed against him, and then Gabriel is there, glowering at him, all of his wings spread in what's meant to be a threatening display.

"You," Gabriel hisses.

The final ward snaps into place, and Gabriel glances up at the ceiling and then around the warehouse. "You shouldn't know—" He cuts himself off as his gaze returns to Sam, wings flaring even more. "You're not the little kiddo who spent hundreds of Tuesdays in tears."

Sam tilts his head up, rolls his shoulders. It's difficult to use physical size to intimidate an archangel and he knows he could never manage it, not without tapping into more of Lucifer than he ever plans to. But Gabriel recognizes the motion, and he knows what Sam Winchester had been bred for.

"You're supposed to be in the Cage," Gabriel mutters, getting ready to flee.

"He is," Dean says, stepping up beside Sam. "If you mean your asshole older brother."

Gabriel's eyes go to Dean. "The last two times we met," he says, "you were both wide open, broadcasting all your thoughts like a radio. Now?" He flicks his hands. "Radio silence." He looks back at Sam, anger and fear and a painful amount of hope saturating the very air around him. "Who are you?" he asks. "What do you want?"

.

They don't tell him everything; Dean wouldn't let Sam, not that he's sure Sam would've. But Dean looks at Gabriel the Trickster and he doesn't see one of the most powerful angels in existence. He just sees a trickster god, the same one that's screwed with them twice now, but who's confused and maybe frightened, looking at Sam like… Dean doesn't even know. Like Sam is terrifying and amazing at the same time. (Which, yeah, Dean gets that.)

They tell him about cambion. Hypothetically, Sam asks how Gabriel feels about cambion, and Gabriel shrugs.

"So, if there was this kid," Dean says, slowly circling Gabriel. "He doesn't know, and he doesn't even have his superpowers yet. But the angels want him, and the demons, too." He looks over Gabriel's head at Sam, who's giving him that befuddled puppy look that always takes years off his age. Dean smiles at him and focuses back on Gabriel, whose shoulders are tense. "See," Dean continues, "until his superpowers wake up, they can find him. Then they'll use him up, and he's just a kid. He'll be scared out of his mind and he'll be in so much pain—" Gabriel's shoulders hunch.

Good. That's a relief.

"You're the most powerful thing we've ever met," Dean says, in front of Gabriel again. He waits until Gabriel tilts his head back to meet Dean's gaze. "Please, help us protect this kid before Heaven or Hell tear him apart."

"Just tell me one thing," Gabriel says after a few moments of silence, of gazing at Dean so fiercely Dean wouldn't be surprised if Gabriel had been reading his mind or his soul. (Dean is really pretty sure he can't, actually, because even though he can't feel it, he knows Sammy has him locked down.) Gabriel turns that piercing gaze on Sam as Dean steps backward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his little brother. "You know I'm an angel. This boy is cambion. Why trust me with him?"

Dean thinks about the story Sam told him, about Gabriel saving them from a hotel full of pagan gods, about Gabriel taking a stand against Lucifer and dying for it, about Gabriel giving them the plan that save the world but damned Sammy at the same time.

"Because he hasn't done anything wrong," Sam says, voice dropping into the quiet like it's gospel from on high. "Because he's half-human and he's got the right to choose his own destiny."

Gabriel swallows so heavily Dean can practically hear it. Then he says, "Not much could'a killed Lilith."

There's a smile in Sam's voice when he replies, "No. Not much could."

Gabriel nods slowly. "Well. I've been lookin' for somethin' to do, anyway."

.

They watch from the road as Gabriel magics up a moving van and a set of parents, as he slips into the guise of a little girl who can't be more than nine, as Jesse's parents stop by their neighbor's house to chat before going to work.

They watch as Gabriel, her tiny body wearing a Wonder Woman shirt and tiny jeans, waves in their direction. She's got curly red hair. She adorable, which is just odd since she's actually one of the most powerful beings in existence.

"I think we're good here," Sam says.

Jesse, with his booksack on his back and a lunchbox in hand, walks over to Gabriel's new house and they watch as Gabriel's 'mom' answers the door. As Gabriel's 'mom' shepherds both Gabriel and Jesse to the end of the street, where there's a bus in the distance.

"How much you think he figured out?" Dean asks, shifting Baby into drive.

Sam sighs. "Enough."

"Yeah, that's what I think, too," Dean says. He doesn't look back even though Sam twists in his seat to watch until they're too far away to even see the bus. "Push comes to shove, Sammy," Dean says when Sam twists back around to slump in his seat, "he'll do the right thing. That's what you told me. He'll pick the world over the dickbag plan."

Sam sighs again. "I know. I, I'm pretty sure he will, but there's so much crap that hasn't happened here. What if I've changed too much for it to all work out?"

Dean glances over at him. "I think you give yourself a little too much credit," he straight-up lies. "And even if you've butterfly effected the world, we'll figure it out, same as we always do."

Huffing a tiny little laugh, Sam asks, "Promise?"

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean says. "Promise."


	11. Chapter 11

In Heaven, Zachariah assigns Uriel and Castiel to find their fallen captain Haniel; though they have yet to locate the human vessel Haniel was reborn into, because of their former closeness, Zachariah is sure the two can locate the fallen grace.

In Hell, Alastair receives a message from one of his informants that a human woman is somehow hearing angels; he assigns Belial the task of locating this woman and wringing from her every bit of information she might have.

On Earth, Bobby Singer hears that demons are looking for someone and he kicks the intel to the Winchester boys.

.

"Uh, Sammy?" Dean says as everything in their room suddenly starts flying into their bags the moment Sam lets his cell drop from his hand.

"We gotta go," Sam says. "Now."

"Okay," Dean mumbles, picking up his jacket. "Another future thing?"

"Yeah," Sam says. His voice is somewhere between annoyed and resigned, while his expression is just straight-up pissed.

"Okay," Dean says again.

.

When the voices first start, Anna thinks she's daydreaming. She's always been interested in languages and the voices are speaking a language she doesn't know—except that she hears it overlaid in English. _The Righteous Man_ and _cambion_ and _Winchesters_ — and more, days and days' worth, and when she finally realizes it's not a daydream, that it's something else, she breaks down in tears, lying in her bed in her dorm, and nothing is ever the same.

.

Anna is staring out the window, listening to the angels murmur about _Winchesters_ , when two men slip into her room. She looks over; there is light shining around them, so beautiful she never wants to look away.

"Hey, Anna," the taller one says, smiling. "I'm Sam, this is my brother Dean."

"Winchester?" Anna asks, leaning forward.

"Yeah," Dean says. "There's some real bad dudes lookin' for you."

"Because of the voices?" she asks.

Sam nods. "Will you come with us, Anna?"

The light around them pulsates. "Yes," she says.

.

While Anna gapes around the cabin in shock, Sam darts back for her parents, grabbing the dad from his church and the mom from a library. They're both shouting as Sam steps away, and Anna rushes to them, shouting, "Mom! Dad!"

"What on earth is going on!?" the dad demands, pushing the mom and Anna behind him.

"Dad!" Anna says. "It's okay, it's okay, I promise." She tugs on one of his arms, looking over at Sam and Dean while she adds, "They saved us."

"Saved us from what?" Anna's mom asks.

Sam glances at Dean, hoping he has some idea of what to say, but Dean just admits, "I don't even know where to start."

.

Obviously, they lie. Well, not exactly. Anna _is_ in fact tuning in to Angel Radio on accident, and both angels and demons _are_ after her so they can tear her apart for being able to hear or for any piece of information they can get, respectively. They just leave out the fact that it's all because she's actually a fallen angel reborn as a human.

Also, they flat out lie about how, exactly, the Milton family was relocated to a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

"So, that's about it," Dean says. "We're lookin' for somewhere to stash y'all."

"Angels?" Anna's dad murmurs. "And they want to hurt her?"

Dean and Sam exchange glances. "Yeah, sorry about that," Dean says. "Uh, some things got lost in translation in that Good Book of yours."

Sam rolls his eyes while Anna's dad glares. Anna's mom sighs and her face crumples; Anna pulls her close, and then her dad turns to wrap both of them in his arms.

"We just want to keep all three of you safe," Sam tells them, trying to keep his voice and face as sincere as he can. He _does_ want to help them, which means he has to force himself to ignore the last time he saw Anna, when she managed to kill every member of his family, including him. It isn't at all easy, but it helps that Anna is just an undergrad student caught up in the machinations of Heaven and Hell, who has no idea what's going on or why. She's just an innocent girl.

"So please," Sam says, catching each of their gazes in turn. "Let us."

Anna nods firmly, holding her parents' hands. "Just tell us what we need to do."

.

For the time being, Sam adjusts the wards around the border, making it so that no one in the Milton family can cross them. He really hopes none of them try because it'll be difficult to explain. While Anna's mom stress-bakes, Anna's dad tears through Pastor Jim's library, which completely shatters his worldview. Sam does feel slightly bad about that.

Anna draws. And draws. And draws. None of it makes sense, as far as Sam can see, but he also has no idea what's happening in Heaven or Hell this time, since it's all changed. She also writes down what she hears the angels saying, and Sam reads it all, trying to figure out what the next move will be.

Dean works his way down the list of _Where can we stash an ex-angel and her human parents?_ Bobby's is out because he's already harboring Adam and his mom, and adding Anna to that is just asking for trouble. None of the hunters they know would be able to protect them from both Heaven and Hell, and it's not like Dean can explain why, anyway.

Finally, he stares at the final option and sighs heavily. "Hey, Sam?" he calls, sinking back in his chair. "I think we gotta call Loki, man."

Even though Sam's in the library with Anna's dad, Dean can hear his resigned sigh from his spot in the kitchen. "Yeah, I kinda figured it'd come to that," he calls back.

.

It's the fifth night, after the Miltons are all asleep, when they go into a clearing close to the northeastern border. Sam makes a tiny hole in the wards and says, "Loki, we need to talk to you."

Once a few minutes have passed, Dean says, "Loki, it's about one of your siblings."

Sam feels a brush against his shields. "C'mon, Loki, please," he says.

There's a rush of wings and Gabriel is in front of them. Sam closes the wards immediately. Gabriel looks up, turning a complete 360 with a sharp whistle. "Damn, Sammy," he says. "Those are some serious wards that no human should be able to set."

Sam shrugs. "Just somethin' I worked out." Dean stifles his grin while Gabriel rolls his eyes.

"So, what's up?" Gabriel asks. "Me and Jesse, we're havin' a grand old time; kid's a riot, let me tell you." He crosses his arms. "What's up?" he repeats. "You said something about my siblings."

"Yeah," Dean says. "Um. We're not sure who she was before, but she's a girl named Anna Milton now."

"Wait, what?" Gabriel demands.

.

Gabriel is tiny (in his Vessel, anyway) but man, can he power-walk. He marches straight to the cabin and bursts in, arrowing straight at Anna where she's asleep beside her mother. He even steps over her father (sacked out on the floor) to get there.

"Haniel," he breathes. "Oh, little sister."

"So I guess you know her, then?" Dean whispers.

Gabriel nods and slowly backs out of the room.

.

Gabriel slumps at the kitchen table and snaps up a mug of hot chocolate. Sam settles across from him while Dean leans against the wall.

"Tell me," Gabriel orders. "Everything."

.

He listens silently as Sam tells him nearly everything and then he laces his fingers together to rest his chin. Sam glances at Dean, who quirks a brow and shrugs. While Gabriel continues to contemplate the table, Dean heads to the pantry to grab a pack of Oreos and s'more Pop-Tarts. After dropping them next to Sam, he pulls down three cups, fills them with milk, and brings them over, too.

Sam goes for the Pop-Tarts; Gabriel mindlessly, silently eats his way through the Oreos. Dean paces around the table and then the kitchen, skin itching with the need to do _something_.

Finally, Gabriel sets down the Oreos, drains his glass of milk, nods firmly, and says, "Okay, I've got a plan."

"'bout time," Dean mutters and sits down beside Sam.

.

"This plan sucks, you know that, right?" Dean asks while Gabriel sketches out various sigils. He has no clue what they mean, but Sam is looming at Gabriel's shoulder, expression intent.

"Look, Deano, if you got somethin' better, I'm all ears," Gabriel mutters.

Sam reaches down with a pencil and marks something, and Gabriel says, "Huh. Nice catch." His brow furrows and he tilts his head slightly, glancing at Sam. "You've definitely changed."

Sam shrugs. Dean rolls his eyes. "So the plan, it's like the way you're hiding the kid?"

"More or less," Gabriel says. "I haven't marked him with the protection sigils yet because he's still growing and he's too young to consent, anyway."

Frowning, Sam asks, "People have to consent to Enochian sigils?"

"Yup," Gabriel says, popping the P. "Anyway, I can give 'em the sigils, set 'em up somewhere, set an alarm."

"Like I said," Dean mumbles. "Terrible plan."

"Yeah, and it's not like you have any better idea," Gabriel says. "I'm already busy with the kid, remember? But if Enochian sigils can protect people from angels, don't you think there's a way to use 'em to protect people from demons, too?"

Sam nods, pointing at something on the paper. "I think that one can be manipulated slightly."

"Huh," Gabriel says. "Good call. That's the one."

.

Anna agrees before Gabriel even finishes explaining what the sigils carved on their bones will do. Her father doesn't agree until Anna's mom asks, "And they'll protect us? Keep Anna safe?"

Gabriel nods. "It'll hurt for just a moment, more pain than you've ever felt. But it'll hide you from angels and demons."

"What about X-rays?" Anna's mom asks.

"That's a good point," Gabriel says. "Hmm. I'll make 'em invisible, too."

Dean chuckles, shaking his head. "Man. Our lives, dude."

"Yeah," Sam says.

.

Something only their masters know: once a hellhound has a scent, they can track it to the ends of the Earth, no matter how long it's been since they smelled it.

.

When he hears Milly barking, Crowley knows that a certain someone marked for Hell has been scented topside, so he orders that all six of his best lovelies be released with his most trustworthy minions riding along. They're the hounds that have the scent, that returned in shame and confusion, and it was only his sheer bewilderment at Lilith's death and the fact that he'd raised all of the girls from pups that kept him from destroying them.

Good thing, too. "I want him alive!" Crowley commands, and it echoes in every single demon loyal to him.

.

It takes about three days before the house is ready, and another week after that for Sam and Gabriel to ensure the surrounding town is as non-supernatural infested as possible. Dean spends the week and a half coaching the Miltons on how to be other people: instead of Rich, Amy, and Anna Milton they're to become Zach, May, and Nora Donne.

 _Nora_ 's dad is the one who has the hardest time, but Dean was expecting that. Nora and her mom both seem to find it exciting and throw themselves into learning wholeheartedly. Nora remains tuned in to Angel Radio, keeping track of where they are and what they're doing.

The morning they're set to be moved in, Nora tells Sam and Dean that the angels assigned to find her are Uriel and Castiel.

Sam scoffs, but though Nora looks at him in askance he doesn't explain.

.

It's as they're leaving the town just like they arrived to it (in a stolen beige Volvo) that everything goes to shit.

.

Gabriel takes off once they're past the edge of the wards. "This is a piece of shit car," Dean mutters. "When are you gonna take us back to the cabin and Baby?"

Sam huffs a laugh. "It's a little early to be going into withdrawal, Dean."

"You seen this thing we're ridin' in?" Dean says.

Sam laughs again as Dean starts cycling through the radio and muttering complaints about the options. "I thought it was driver picks the music, Dean," he says.

"Yeah, that's only when the driver picks good music, Sammy," Dean shoots back grinning.

They hear the howling at the same time.

.

Dean can tell when Sam tries to teleport them out and fails, and then he hits the brakes because there's a pack of hellhounds in the middle of the road. "Shit," Dean mutters, eyes tracking the hounds. "Sam, if we can get out of this without—"

"I'll do my best," Sam promises as they both get out of the Volvo.

Half a dozen demons pop in while the hounds snarl. "We have to kill 'em all," Dean says as soft as he can. "None of them can make it back."

Another four demons pop in and the one in front shouts, "They are for Alistair!"

"Alistair?" Sam echoes, and Dean really doesn't like his tone.

"Sammy," he mutters, trying to catch Sam's eye while the demons all shout at each other.

With a flutter of wings, two angels appear in between the demon groups. "Oh, fuck," Sam says, grabbing Dean's arm. "Get down!"

They huddle beside the piece of shit Volvo while the angels battle the demons and the demons battle each other and the angels and the hellhounds attack everything in sight—except the two humans, which Dean really doesn't get. He figures it must be Sam's doing, some kind of shield, but whatever it is, it's letting him get a better view of a demon vs angel vs hellhound fight than he's ever wanted.

"If we can get a mile away," Sam whispers in his ear, "I can get us out of here without being followed."

One of the hounds is thrown just in front of them, and she whines as she brushes against Dean's boot. She flinches back as one of the demons is smote (which, wow, painfully bright light), looking right at Dean, before rising to her feet.

Sam glances back, but Dean barely glimpses it as the hound lunges for him.

.

All of Sam's focus narrows to the spot where Dean was, the empty space. Castiel and Uriel have gotten rid of all but two demons, and they and the hounds all disappear.

The hellhounds and their demons wanted Dean.

Uriel and Castiel turn to face him. He ignores them, _reaching_ for his brother—but there's nothing. Emptiness and silence.

"The Abomination," Uriel intones.

Sam shifts his gaze from the asphalt.

"Where is Dean Winchester?" Castiel demands, back to being a little automaton.

"Speak, mudmonkey!" Uriel orders.

Dean is either with Alistair or Crowley, and neither is acceptable. Whoever it is, they've rigged something that blocks Sam's ability to always know where Dean is, which is also unacceptable.

"Speak!" Uriel orders again and this time he steps forward, hand held up.

Sam raises his head, then slowly rises to his feet.

Castiel repeats, "Where is Dean Winchester?"

In unison, they step forward, intent on capturing him, presumably for torture until they can find Dean and toss him into Hell. They'll try to wipe his mind, probably, set up some other way of breaking the Final Seal.

"Go fuck yourselves," he says, turning away. He takes a step and he's at Stull; another and he's inside the Sistine Chapel; another and another and another, crisscrossing the globe, half of him focused on losing a tail and the rest seeking Dean.

There's nothing, so he takes a step and is in front of the cabin, where the Impala is waiting, and the ingredients Dean had pulled out for jambalaya, and the book Sam was gonna read to him so they could mock it together while he cooked.

"Dean," he says.


	12. Chapter 12

Warnings: minor torture & threats of rape

* * *

Dean wakes shackled at both his ankles and his wrists, dangling about a foot off the ground. It's not the most pain he's ever been—that prize goes to his dad being possessed by the thing that killed his mom and slowly gutting him from the inside—but it's pretty fucking close.

"What the hell?" he mumbles, trying to get some leverage, but all it does is send bolts of pain throughout his body. He looks around the room, which seems fairly fancy and sterile at the same time: white walls, white floor made of stone, a bar with bottles of wine and whisky and glasses, and a roiling mass of shadows that his mind shies away from identifying. He assesses his body next: everything is sore and his boots are gone, but his socks, boxers, jeans, and t-shirt seem to still be in place. As best he can tell, all his weapons are gone, too.

"It was quite a clever trick, nicking you," a smarmy voice with an English accent says from somewhere behind him. "Took months of planning. That brother of yours?" There's a sharp whistle and the sound of dress shoes tapping on the tiled floor. "Difficult to fool. Bit of a control freak, yeah?"

The guy who walks around Dean to smirk toothily at him from the front looks exactly like what Dean would've guessed based on the smarmy voice.

"Who the fuck are you?" Dean demands.

The guy's smirk widens and his eyes flare red.

Fuck.

"I'm Crowley," he drawls, voice somehow getting even more smarmy. "Lately King of the Crossroads, currently Co-King of Hell."

" _Co-King_?" Dean echoes.

Crowley waves a hand dismissively. "There's someone who hasn't been killed yet, he also thinks he's king." He walks over to the table in the corner and chooses the tumbler of that smells like whiskey. "Anyway, that's what I've got you for now, haven't I?"

Well, that doesn't sound good.

"See, since someone killed Lilith, there's been a bit of furor," Crowley says. He really seems to love the sound of his own voice. "You should've been dragged to Hell in pieces but my babies came back whining." He sips the whiskey. "Lilith and quite a few of her most loyal all died that night and you and your brother completely disappeared. It took some doing, I'll admit, but I finally tracked the pair of you down and I've had eyes on you ever since."

The red-eyed bastard laughs. Dean shifts, trying to ease the throbbing his shoulders. "Alastair wants to get Daddy out of the Cage. I would prefer that didn't happen." Crowley pours more whiskey and flashes his eyes at Dean again. "You are the only bargaining chip, Dean Winchester. Wanted by Heaven and Hell—but _I_ am the only one who knows the true power here."

Dean scoffs, shoving his dread at anyone possibly knowing about Sammy as far down as he can. "You're just as stupid as every other demon I've met."

Crowley just stares at him, smirking. "Lilith was the first demon, boyo. She was… older than you can even begin to comprehend. Her power was immense. Not just any little meatsuit hopped up on demon blood could kill her."

Dean tries not to react but Crowley's lips twitch and he raises the glass for another sip.

"See, your little brother, he's had potential since before Azazel ever even met your mother." The fucker practically cackles. "Deals upon deals made you both, you know, Dean. Plans and plots and _blood_."

"Shut your mouth," Dean snarls. There's a counterpoint from the shadows he ignores.

Smirking, Crowley flicks the fingers of the hand not holding the glass and something inside Dean's torso twists. "Don't talk to me like that," Crowley says genially. "I am, after all, your king." He takes another sip while Dean tries not gasp at the pain because every time his body jerks, it just hurts more. "Anyway, where was I?" Crowley muses, setting the glass down on the table. "Oh, right. Your brother." He saunters over to pat Dean on the cheek and then slaps him on the other, rocking his entire body. There's absolutely no give in the chains; something in Dean's right shoulder tears.

"Like I said," Crowley tells him. "You are the bargaining chip that's going to put me on a solo throne and frighten those bloody angels into staying away for good."

"You're overestimatin' my charms there a little, chuckles," Dean says, voice as steady as he can make it.

Crowley just pats him on the cheek again, smiling with all of his teeth. "I don't think I'm over _or_ underestimating you, Dean," Crowley says. "Which is why even though I have to go chat with the minions, I'm leaving you a few friends." He snaps his fingers and there's a low growl in the corner. "Milly and Daisy," Crowley says, sounding almost proud. "Two of my best girls." The shadows condense and what he's been ignoring can't be ignored anymore.

Stepping away, Crowley orders, "Watch him," before flicking his fingers again, making that same something twist. Dean squeezes his eyes closed, trying not to react.

"I don't, don't suppose," he manages, knowing that Crowley's still there because of the footsteps, "that since I've got such guards, you'd let me down?"

Crowley laughs. "Oh, no, that won't do. Like I said, Dean, I'm not going to underestimate you Winchester boys."

And then the footsteps are gone.

Dean closes his eyes, trying to steady himself while the pain still rockets through his body. The hellhounds shift so he opens his eyes to watch as they pad over. They're dog-shaped, obviously, but made of smoke and sulfur. He stays as still as possible as they circle around him, making snuffling noises at each other.

One of them nudges at his foot, shifting him slightly. He winces and the hound whines. "You," he says. "You're the bitch that brought me here."

She whines again.

"Oh, shut up," he mumbles.

.

Dean tries to count the seconds as they pass but he loses the thread at least five times. He ignores the hounds, who pace around the room and occasionally whuffle at each other. He fidgets with the shackles on his wrists, working through the pain as best he can but he can't even feel a place for a key to go.

Of course not. They're demon-made. Fuck.

One of the hellhounds, the bitch who dropped him into this douche's lair, comes over to sit right in front of where his feet would be, if he wasn't at least a foot of the ground, dangling. Like bait on a hook.

… not a good thought while two hellhounds are present. Double fuck.

"Uh, hey, girl," he says, glancing at the hellhound gazing up at him, tongue out, head lolled like an inquisitive dog. "I don't suppose you know how to get out of these chains?"

She blinks. It's freaky.

"Okay," he says. "Um. I'm chained up in a room with two hellhounds. Awesome."

The other hellhound comes over and the first one rumbles at her. Him? It? For some reason, Dean's pretty sure they're both girls. "Wait," he mutters while they're… talking? "Didn't that dickwad call you both girls?"

And then they're both looking at him, heads tilted. "Please don't be hungry," he says with a nervous chuckle.

They stand, still staring at him.

"Hey, uh, we're all cool here, girls," he says. Crowley said their names, didn't he? "Uh, Milly and Daisy, we're good, right?"

What kind of names are those for hellhounds?

The one who grabbed him topside jumps up on her hind-legs and he gasps in pain as her paws land on his shoulders. She sniffs at his neck but he barely notices through the fire racing through his body, and then she drops back down, whuffles at the other one, and walks through the wall.

"… okay," Dean says, breathing through the pain. "Hellhounds can walk through walls. Awesome."

.

The pain never lessens but he fights his way through it, examining the room again, testing the chains. Something is definitely wrong with his right shoulder, which is just awesome. His legs are going numb. The hellhound is sitting on her haunches, watching him.

The other hellhound oozes through the wall, rumbles at the one that stayed, and they seem to have a conversation for a good long while, which isn't creepy as hell at all. Then they both turn their heads to look at him and the one that grabbed him pads over, little wisps of smoke with every step. Once she reaches him, she rises up on her hind-legs again, puts her front paws on his shoulders again, and cocks her head, staring into his eyes.

Fuck, it hurts. Her weight against his body, still trapped in the chains that shift in place slightly, sending licks of fire through every nerve. His right shoulder hurts the most, but everything is burning from the inside out—

Her eyes aren't blood-red or yellow or black, any color he's ever seen. It's like they're no color at all. He tries to focus on that to anchor himself.

Then she lunges up, rocking his body back, and he screams at the same time her teeth close around the chain holding him.

.

When he wakes up, there's a hound on either side of him. His entire body aches but his shoulder is throbbing. He sits up slowly, glancing from one hound to the other.

If Sam could find him, he'd already he out of here. If Sam's alive—

Sam _has_ to be alive. Without Dean weighing him down, he'd be able to tear his way free.

The hellhound that grabbed him topside licks his cheek, a stripe of heat that radiates through his body. "What the fuck?" he breathes. The chains are in pieces on the floor, he sees now. And there isn't a door.

The amulet dangling from his neck starts to warm.

.

By the time he makes it to his feet, his shoulder is the only thing hurting. It's fucking annoying because he can't use his right arm. He glances down at the hounds; the one that grabbed him topside is actually smaller than the other, though not by much, and both of them are far larger than any dog he's ever seen or heard of. He asks her, "You Milly or Daisy?"

She barks once. "Milly?" he asks and she barks again. "Okay, Milly. Any reason you tore the chains?" No answer. He wraps the fingers of his left hand around the amulet, which is still slightly warm.

"Okay," he says, slowly turning around to assess every part of the room. No windows, no doors, no furniture except for the table with the whiskey and wine. No food, either; how long has he been here? Because he's starting to get hungry and his mouth is dry. He looks down at the hellhounds. "I don't have a clue what's goin' on here," he tells them. "What the fuck? Why haven't you ripped me apart?"

The bigger one, Daisy, walks past him and he turns to watch her melt through the wall. When he looks back at Milly, her tongue is hanging out in what's gotta be a doggy smile, and it's the creepiest thing he's ever seen.

… okay, the creepiest thing in at least five months, he admits to himself.

"Don't suppose you can explain what's going on?" he asks but when she just stares up at him, he picks a wall and starts to search it with his hand, feeling for any catch or knot that'd open a passage or door. There's nothing, of course, but he just moves on to the next wall.

He makes his way around the room three times before he gives up, sagging against the wall he'd started with.

.

He counts out ten minutes, then shoves the table until it's next to the wall and hops on it. With his back as secure as it can be, he amuses himself by throwing Crowley's alcohol across the room, bottles shattering messily. Milly stretches out by his feet. When all the bottles are gone, Dean's still aching, hungry, and thirsty, and about to lose his damn mind. So he starts talking, telling Milly about the Winchesters' greatest hunts, how proud he was when Sammy got into Stanford, he relieved he felt when Azazel died with a bullet Dean fired between his meatsuit's eyes, how that giant sentient teddy bear was freaky as hell, and then he starts singing his way through his favorite albums because the silence is driving him crazy.

Milly lunges to her feet and darts across the room; it's barely enough warning, but Dean jumps from the table and follows her just in time to catapult into the demon who opens the previously non-existent door. They both fall into a hallway, the meatsuit (some middle-aged guy) cushioning Dean so it barely hurts.

"Winchester," the demon snarls as Dean rolls off the meatsuit, ignoring the fire in his shoulder with an ease that stopped frightening him when he was 15. The demon gets to its feet, smirking, and waits until Dean is up to shove him into the wall, making sure to grind his injured shoulder. "Guess I need to put you back in your cage," the demon says, leaning in close and flicking the meatsuit's gaze down Dean's body. "You're pretty for a hunter," it says. "Long as you survive, the King doesn't care what happens to you."

He tries catching his breath, figure out a plan, and just as he readies himself move, a low rumbling growl fills the hallway. The demon cocks its head before its smirk widens. "You wanna help me, darlin'?" it asks. "We can't kill him but we can definitely play."

The demon pushes off of him, turning to gesture expansively at Milly, whose head is low, teeth bared. Dean swallows nervously, thrown back to that final day of his deal, when a pack of hellhounds hunted him, were going to tear him apart and drag him down.

Grabbing Dean's injured shoulder, the demon pulls him forward, telling Milly, "C'mon, let's put him back in the cage."

When Milly moves, Dean barely sees it. He staggers back as the demon's grip slackens and then the meatsuit collapses but Dean watches in shock as Milly pins down roiling smoke. As she snaps her fangs at the smoke, it rips and tears and then with a scream and flare of fire, the smoke fades.

Dean brings his hand up to his hurt shoulder as Milly turns around, licking her chops. "Good girl," he gasps out, sagging against the wall and sliding down it. "Good girl."

.

After a little rest, Dean forces himself to his feet. Milly leans against him and she's so tall that he actually lets her take a little of his weight. "Know a way out, Milly?" he asks. She nudges at his hand so he pats her head. He takes a deep breath and then asks, "D'ya know where that smarmy British ass stashed my weapons?"

Milly steps forward. Dean takes a deep breath, shoves the pain as far away as he can, and follows.


	13. Chapter 13

When Juliet comes barging into a meeting, Crowley knows something has gone wrong with his perfect plan. He turns to his three underlings and says, "Thank you; we'll resume this later." They all nod and hurry out. He glances towards his assistant. "Melanie, be a dear and fetch the hound keepers."

"Of course, sir," she chirps, immediately taking her leave.

Juliet remains by the door, tense. "Sweetheart," Crowley croons, going to her and caressing her ears. "Lead me to our guest."

She rubs her flank against his legs, circling him completely, before setting off at a lope; Crowley hurries after her. He whistles sharply, which should summon every hound in the complex. Within moments, Delilah, Cally, and Helen are there, keeping pace with Juliet. Toby, Crowley's largest hound and Helen's mate, arrives just as Crowley turns the corner to see Frank's dead meatsuit on the floor of the hall and the door of Dean Winchester's cage wide open.

There was no way for a human, even a Winchester, out of those chains or that room. Not unless Crowley's girls turned on him. But why would either of them do that?

Toby rumbles at Crowley's shoulder; he scratches under Toby's chin, mind racing through contingencies. Winchester was wounded, weaponless, and can't possibly know his way around the complex. There are hellhound patrols and two dozen demons; any leverage Winchester could provide is void, as Crowley already has him. Of course, if permanent harm comes to him… well, his brother killed Lilith. But can he take on Crowley's entire army?

Only Crowley's best and brightest are at the complex. Sam Winchester is far more palatable than Lucifer or Alistair. It's in Crowley's best interest to keep Dean Winchester alive, if not unharmed. Surely Azazel's brat will understand if his intractable brother has a few minor cuts and bruises. Maybe a torn shoulder and broken bones. It's not like the man won't heal.

Crowley sighs in disgust, kicking the meatsuit. "Hunt," he orders his girls. "Bring me the human _alive_." Patting Toby's head, he says, "Stay with me." To his underlings, he commands, "There's a Winchester loose in the complex. Bring him to me _alive_." The girls take off and Crowley shakes his head in disappointment. "It seems Milly and Daisy have betrayed me, boy," he tells Toby, spinning on his heel. "Who should I replace them with? Victoria and Rochelle are lovely, aren't they?"

Toby doesn't answer, of course, but Crowley starts listing all available hounds and musing on their merits, keeping his focus on Toby's body language as they pass rooms and go down hallways. It's a maze, this place. Crowley's minions keep getting lost, so there's no way a human could navigate it without help. The fact that the man hasn't been located yet just provides further proof that two of Crowley's best girls have chosen a new master.

 _How?_ Milly was the one who caught the bastard, for fuck's sake. Besides that, they'd only seen him trussed up like a pig being slaughtered. They'd gone to claim him when his deal came due. They returned that night, tails between their legs, ears drooping, ashamed of themselves for failing. They'd been salivating for a chance to redeem themselves! How could his precious girls betray him for a mewling infant _Winchester_?

Toby suddenly lunges forward with a snarl, barreling around a corner. Crowley rushes after him and then stops immediately because there's a Devil's Trap drawn in blood on both walls, Daisy is in the process of killing Keith, and Milly is crouched between Toby and Dean, growling.

"Bad girls!" Crowley shouts.

Daisy saunters, the _bitch_ , over to Dean's side.

"Sic 'em, Toby!" Crowley orders.

It isn't until Toby remains still that Crowley remembers Daisy whelped him. Bloody fucking hell.

.

So, it turns out that having two hellhounds on your side is very helpful when trying to escape from a demonic maze full of demons. Guns are useless, and so are knives—except for that knife they got from Ruby, which Dean is clutching in his one good hand while trailing Daisy through endless halls.

There's gotta be an exit somewhere, but Dean's so turned around he couldn't even find his way back to the armory. He'd stocked up after reclaiming his own weapons, but he can't even move his right arm anymore. If he doesn't get medical attention soon, it'll be bad.

Milly and Daisy have dealt with five demons, while Dean just trudges behind them, doing his best to stay on his feet. A sixth comes out of nowhere while both girls are busy and Dean barely dodges in time; when he overbalances, Dean shoves the demon-killing knife into the meatsuit's neck. He then sags against the wall to catch his breath, until Milly comes to nose his hand.

"Alright, girl," he says. "Let's keep goin'."

Daisy scouts ahead while Milly stays beside him, and he's able to walk (albeit so slowly it's a fucking nightmare) with only occasionally leaning on her. When Daisy starts barking, Milly shoots forward and by the time Dean gets there, two more demons are down. But Milly angles herself between Dean and the corridor, ruff up and teeth bared, and that can only mean bad things.

"Okay, I got an idea," Dean mutters. Both meatsuits are dead so he uses the knife to slice up one of their arms and then painstakingly draws Devil's Traps on the walls, lining them up as precisely as he can. He has zero idea if it'll work or not, because any demons coming won't actually be istanding/i in or underneath them, but it's the best he can do. There's black creeping in the edge of his vision and he knows he won't be able to stand for much longer.

He has to figure what's warding this place and break it. It's the only way out.

A gigantic hellhound tears around the corner, snarls echoing off the walls, and behind it is the smarmy British ass, who shouts, "Bad girls! Sic 'em, Toby!" But it doesn't. It just growls at Milly without moving.

Crowley looks surprised for a second before scowling. He doesn't step forward, so the Traps must work.

"You said I'm your leverage," Dean says, subtly leaning into Daisy. "How about you let me out of this place and I'll tell Sam not to turn you into a smudge on the floor?"

"Interesting proposition," Crowley returns. "How about you go back into your cage, stop playing with sharp things, and wait like a good boy until your betters are done negotiating?" He smirks with all of his teeth and Dean can't even muster up the proper amount of rage. It's all he can do to stay upright.

Crowley is frightened of Sam. Dean knows it's the only reason he's still alive and in one piece.

"They'll have to be destroyed, you know," Crowley says, looking at Milly and then Daisy. "Unfaithful hounds are useless."

 _There's_ the rage, welling up like a tide. Dean steps forward, and while Toby growls, he cedes ground as Milly and Daisy keep pace with Dean, still in-between him and the hound.

Crowley tilts his head inquisitively. "What are you doing, you little brute?" he asks. "None of your weapons will work on me, and though you seem to be controlling the girls somehow, they won't attack me."

He's standing right at the edge of the trap, less than fifty feet away. Dean forces himself to keep going. Toby steps back and back and back, until he's through the Traps, beside Crowley. Daisy stops just inside the edge of them, out of Crowley's reach because of the Traps' power. With Milly's help, Dean finally reaches that spot, too.

"You're the kind of arrogant bastard who'd power your wards with your own power, right?" Dean says. He's banking everything on that assumption.

Crowley narrows his eyes. "What does that matter?" He rakes his gaze down Dean's body. "You're barely standing, you idiot. If you'd get back in your cage, I could have a doctor look over you. You're no good to me dead."

Dean smiles because his assumption is right, and then he throws everything he has into lunging forward, knife ready—

He plows into Crowley, all three hounds snarling or howling, and with his weight behind it, and gravity, the knife goes all the way in, and the last thing he sees before mercifully blacking out is the shock in Crowley's eyes and the lightning that crackles through him.

.

Sam is sitting on the Impala's hood, eyes closed, _reaching_ as far and as deep as he can when Dean blinks back into his awareness.

He shoots to his feet, fists clenched, and then with everything he has, he blasts his way through crumbling wards to see Dean's prone body collapsed on Crowley and two hellhounds battling while a third is licking at Dean's face.

Ignoring the two fighting, Sam rushes to Dean; he's ready to kill the hound but it backs away, ears lowered and tail between its legs. "Oh, fuck, Dean," he whispers as he gently turns Dean over. There's something wrong with the way his right arm is hanging and there's nothing visible to explain why he's unconscious, but Sam knows intimately what demons and angels can do that doesn't leave marks.

His senses are on high alert, so he can feel the demons approaching, dozens of them.

One of the hellhounds that was fighting slinks over and settles beside the one that was licking Dean. It goes against everything he knows about them but he could swear they're both concerned.

It's that impossible thought that saves them.

He keeps his hands on Dean but grabs the hounds with two tendrils of grace, and as he flies them all away, he pours all of his rage and hate and fear into a burst of grace that will spread through the building and then keep going until it runs out, killing every demonic thing it touches.

There'll be fallout, he knows. He doesn't care.

He lands in the panic room with Dean and two whining hellhounds, and he doesn't have the first clue how to help his brother. A doctor? A hospital? Kidnap an angel?

Angels can heal, he knows that. Gabriel might do it, but Sam knows he'll destroy anything that touches Dean right now.

Angels can heal. Sam looks down at his hand. He has Lucifer's grace but he doesn't know how to use it in ways that don't harm. He hasn't slept in days, hasn't eaten, has used his powers far more than he ever has before, and he doesn't even know what all is wrong with Dean.

"For Dean," he murmurs, because what's the point of what Dean calls his _fuck-off powers_ if he can't use them to help his brother?

He gently rests his palm on Dean's chest, right over his heart.

Angels can heal. Sam's no angel but he's sure as fuck _something_ , and it's all about intent, isn't it? Will.

"Please," he says.

Warmth pools under his hand and sinks into Dean. Sam will never know how long he kneels there, warm light surrounding them both, but as he falls across Dean's chest, limp and exhausted, he hears, "Sammy!" and it's all worth it.

.

The first thing Dean notices is warmth racing through his body, his aches fading; his shoulder stops throbbing, his muscles stop shuddering, and he feels like he's slept for a week, like he's eaten three full meals, like he's never been thirsty.

It's all centered on a hand on his chest, so he opens his eyes—just in time to watch Sam topple over. "Sammy!" he shouts, bringing his arms up to catch Sam. "Sam, fuck, _what did you do_."

There's no answer, of course. Just an unconscious little brother and two worried hellhounds. "Shit," he mutters, carefully sliding Sam off him and arranging him so he'll be more comfortable. He does a quick injury check but Sam seems fine. Just unconscious. And Dean is better than fine, so he figures Sam wore himself out. How long has it been since Crowley grabbed him?

"Okay, so blankets first," Dean says, rolling to his feet. There's a pile in the corner, so he digs the thickest, fluffiest comforter out and then tucks it around Sam. "Next, I should see what supplies we've got." If they don't have food—well, he can't go out and get any, not until Sam's up, so he'll just have to make do. Nothing he hasn't done before. "And wash some clothes," he continues, "since we've both been wearin' these since, well, I don't know when. Been awhile." He looks down at his blood- and sweat-stained shirt. "Clothes before food," he decides, since he's not hungry and Sam's sleeping.

Milly and Daisy have been sitting quietly, but both perk up when he turns to look at them. "What do hellhounds even eat?" he asks helplessly.

.

After showing Milly and Daisy where the yard is and telling them not to cross the wards, Dean untucks Sam and strips all his clothes off, then puts a pair of clean boxers on him and tucks him back under the comforter. There's a pile of dirty clothes in front of the washing machine, so he shoves it all in and then strips his own off. Once it's going, he takes a brief shower.

He's never felt more physically fit in his life. Whatever Sammy did, it cleared up all of his chronic pains. He wouldn't even be surprised if all his bones no longer showed signs of ever being broken. He stretches the shoulder Crowley had hurt but there's no lingering stiffness. His left knee doesn't have that old pull in it, those two poorly-healed fingers aren't crooked anymore. The only evidence left of all the crap he's survived are the scars.

Shaking off the maudlin turn his thoughts have taken, Dean steps out of the shower and pulls on a pair of boxers and a shirt that's too big—must be Sam's—and goes to the kitchen to see what supplies they have left. Whenever Sam wakes up, he'll probably be hungry.

.

There's leftovers in the fridge that are about to start growing mold; he tosses them out. He finds some chicken in the freezer and decides to make smothered chicken with mashed potatoes: it'll be easy on Sam's stomach, just in case, and it's also one of his favorites.

Once the chicken's in the oven, he steps outside to check on the hounds. It's only now, after everything's quieted down, that he wonders why he can see them.

Sam killed Lilith, who Ruby claimed held his contract; the hellhounds came for him, and Sam ordered them away. But was his deal ever actually closed? He can still see the hounds, and only people close to the Veil can, according to Bobby. Sam can see them, too, that night and on the road when Milly grabbed him. It's either the grace or the demon blood, maybe both.

Milly bounds over, looking more like a happy Labrador than a fearsome hound of Hell. There's a rabbit in her mouth, which she drops at his feet before flopping down to start tearing it apart.

"The pair'a you are gonna chase away all the natives, aren't you?" he laughs. Daisy comes tearing out of the woods with some bird in _her_ mouth, so Dean just shakes his head and goes back inside.

.

Since the chicken's still cooking, Dean goes on a cleaning spree. Every five minutes, he checks on Sam, so the cleaning is slow going. He pulls the chicken out and checks on the hounds, who are curled up together on the grass. It should be nowhere near as adorable as it is.

There's nothing left of their catch except blood on the grass. They even ate the bones, which is convenient.

After checking on Sam again, Dean joins them in the yard. "I figure it's time we talk," he says, sitting in front of them. They both raise their heads to look at him. "Y'all clearly understand me when I talk. Is there any way y'all can communicate with me?" Remembering when Milly told him her name, "How about one bark for yes, two for no?"

They both bark once.

"Huh," he says. "Okay. So, y'all chose me over Crowley?"

Milly barks once.

"I really wish I could ask why," Dean mutters. "So. Are y'all still invisible to people who haven't sold their souls?"

Daisy barks, this time.

"Will y'all be happy to stay here?" he asks.

Again, they bark in unison. Daisy's is slightly deeper, just like she's slightly bigger. Milly belly-crawls over, tail wagging, and slides across Dean's lap, just like any other dog he's ever met. She should smell like ash, should be shedding soot all over him, but she's not. She feels a bit warm but it's fur under his hand, not fire and smoke. His eyes and his hand are receiving entirely different information and it's possibly the most disturbing thing he's ever experienced.

"I don't know how Sam'll react when he wakes up," Dean tells them, scratching Milly under her chin. "But can y'all look after him the way you have me?"

Daisy barks softly.

"If… if he doesn't want y'all around," Dean says. "Don't fight, okay? Just go. I can't pick you over him." He hesitates, fingers tangling in Milly's fur. "I won't."

Milly whines, but they both bark once.

He stays with them for as long as he can stand it, and then he goes to check on Sam again.

.

Sam doesn't wake until the morning. Dean picked the food up at sunset, and didn't bother eating any himself. He then slipped in beside Sam, untucking him enough that he could fit, and tried to cradle his baby brother like he did when his brother was actually a baby. He doesn't expect to sleep, but he wakes when Sam does, and then he nearly cries in relief.

"Dean?" Sam mumbles, batting at him lightly with a trembling hand. "Why'm I s'weak?"

"I don't have a fucking clue, Sam," Dean replies, sitting up and petting his little brother's hair. "But did you eat while that fucker had me? Did you sleep or bathe or take care of _any_ basic fucking necessities?"

Sam's tries those fucking puppy dog eyes, but Dean won't crumble. He won't.

"How long, Sam?" he asks calmly. He doesn't stop petting Sam's greasy hair because he knows it's helping keep Sam focused. It isn't the first time Sam forgot the _basic fucking necessitie_ s.

"Four days," Sam mutters petulantly. He stares up at Dean. "Couldn't find you."

"I know, Sammy," Dean says. He extricates himself from the blanket and then his little brother-turned-octopus. "C'mon, you're gonna eat somethin', you're gonna shower, and you're gonna sleep some more." He grabs Sam's wrists and tugs. "Up and at 'em, Sammy. Clearly, someone's gotta look after you."

Once he's standing and steady on his feet, Sam wraps his octopus arms around Dean. "Couldn't find you," he says again, face buried in the join of Dean's neck and shoulder.

"You got me out," Dean says, squeezing Sam as tight as he can. "And then you nearly killed yourself healin' me. But we're both safe. We're both here."

He waits until Sam begins to pull away before letting his arms drop.

"I'm hungry, Dean," Sam admits, in that same small voice he used when that damned rabbit foot made him lose his shoe.

"Well, I may have stress cooked last night," Dean says. "There's gotta be something in there you'll like."

Sam's a bit sluggish, but that's fine. That's what Dean is for: to make sure Sam eats and sleeps and bathes and is safe and has fun. Since Dad shoved Sam into his arms and told him to not look back. Sam literally saved the world and then traveled back in time, so it's not like Dean has any complaints here.

He manages to get Sam to eat half a plain chicken breast and some broth, then he has to help Sam shower because he can't trust that Sam'll be able to stand that long on his own and Sam's entirely too big for the bathtub (not that he'd trust Sam to take a bath without drowning).

Once Sam's dressed in boxers and a loose shirt, Dean asks, "You wanna sleep in a bed or back in the panic room?"

"In our room," Sam says, listing into Dean. "'m'tired."

"Alright, let's get you down, then," Dean says, guiding and half-carrying Sam down the stairs. It's a process.

"C'you tell the story 'bout the prince'n'the dragon?" Sam asks as he mostly falls onto the pallet and nearly drags Dean with him. He's barely awake, and it's probably mostly just his stubborn ass being stubborn.

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean says. He arranges the pillows and blankets for Sam's optimal comfort and then settles beside him. "There was a prince," Dean begins. "The youngest son of a mighty king." He reaches out to gently tug at a lock of Sam's hair. "He always had questions for their tutors that none of his brothers ever considered."

Sam's asleep in minutes. Nearly an hour passes before Dean can bring himself to go back upstairs and see to the hounds.

.

In Hell, Alastair celebrates Crowley's death by breaking 666 souls. While the method of Crowley's death _is_ worrisome, Alastair will worry about it once his celebration is complete.

When Alastair declares himself King of Hell, no one dares deny him.

"Now," he says to the Keepers of the Hounds, "have your pets scour Earth because I want those brothers found. Kill the older. Bring the younger to me." He grins. "In pieces, if need be."

.

In Heaven, Bartholomew, Inias, and Hannah are sent to investigate the massive surge of grace that destroyed 50 square miles in Massachusetts (not that many angels know or care what Massachusetts is) and there would be no interest in the site, save for the grace. Thousands of humans perished, though the investigation reveals that the target was what seemed to be a demon's court. Michael and Raphael listen to the report, dismiss the seraphs, and then Raphael turns to Michael and says in bewildered horror, "The amount of grace—it could only have been an archangel, Brother."

Michael sighs. "Lucifer is yet caged. I do not believe it was Gabriel, but we must find him, if only to be sure."

.

On Earth, Sam Winchester dreams of falling through a void on fire while an ancient voice murmurs, _You are such an entertaining thing, small one_. He wakes huddled against his brother, tears on his face, and he doesn't remember why he's so frightened.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean whispers. He doesn't know why it makes Sam cry when he adds, "I'm right here. I'm not gonna leave you." He just holds on until Sam finally slips into an exhausted slumber.

Nearly a week has passed, and Sam's strength is slowly returning. He has an uneasy truce with the hounds, though he did warm up after Dean told him the whole story.

Because his senses are still slightly dulled, he doesn't realize for most of a day that one of the wards has crumpled just enough for the most powerful archangel to notice. He rebuilds it the moment he realizes, but doesn't know it's too late.


	14. Chapter 14

Note: anything said on twitter about characters is not canon here. *whistles innocently*

* * *

When Michael senses his Vessel (and his brother's), he tells no one. He does not react in any way noticeable, continuing his discussion with Raphael on how to find Gabriel. Lucifer ( _Samael_ ) is still Caged, for the world would have shook were any part of it opened.

How, then, has Michael felt his brother's Grace? His first brother, his favorite brother, the brother that betrayed them and who Father ordered him to help cast down—

His Vessel vanishes again, but Michael knows where they are.

Again, he tells no one.

"I believe," Raphael is saying, "that Balthazar knows where Gabriel is hiding."

"Send Malachi and Hester," Michael orders. He pauses, watching as Raphael commands their siblings, and then he says, "I go to seek Revelation. I should like peace until I return."

"Of course, Brother," Raphael says, inclining his head.

Free Will was granted only to the mortals of Earth, the 'lesser' beings, as Lucifer called them. Michael and all his siblings were to watch over them, to marvel at Father's creations. Michael was presented with two choices, when Lucifer turned away: either Lucifer rebelled (therefore exercising Free Will) or he was following Father's ordained path.

He is tired. Michael goes to the Garden, still tended by Joshua, and he searches for his Father. For all these eons, he has guided Heaven and it is exhausting. He (and Raphael, of course) has been asked to verify everything the lower choirs do, no matter how small a matter. Raphael has commanded a dozen, over the eons, to visit Naomi, to be corrected from errant paths.

Angels were not blessed with Free Will. How, then, to explain Lucifer? Gabriel's disappearance?

Raphael believes Father to be dead. Michael is not quite sure, but when Raphael mused that fulfilling the last of Father's plan, to destroy all that is impure in order to create Paradise—Michael could find no fault with it.

To see his brother again—even if only to battle, to finish what they started so long ago…

His Vessel tormented into becoming a tormentor; his brother's Vessel tainted and breaking the final lock. Father's plan brought to fruition, and whatever end.

Free Will does not exist in angels. Was it, then, Father's plan to damn Samael?

Whatever has happened with the Vessels, it is not of angel make. Demons? Surely not, if the destruction in Massachusetts means anything.

Michael must talk with the Vessels, to learn of what has happened, what changed.

"You know," Joshua muses, looking up from the dandelions to smile at Michael. "Mortal children grow into adults." Michael blinks at him. Joshua's smile widens. "You ever wonder if maybe Our Father intended for us to grow up?"

Joshua shuffles off, fingers trailing along the flowers.

Angels do not have Free Will. Which must mean, surely, that Michael choosing to Raise a Vessel so that he can talk with his True Vessel is part of Father's plan.

He did say he sought Revelation, after all.

.

Michael leaves Heaven for the first time that the youngest angels can remember. He does so quietly, choosing not to use any of the gates that his siblings know of; instead, Michael returns to the final spot Samael ever stood on, that final day, and from there, Michael throws himself into the air, beats his great wings once, and then rides the wind down to Earth.

He does not Fall. As the Prophet who writes the Word will note later, that is important to remember. When Michael leaves Heaven, he does not Fall.

.

Angels can speak in their true forms with their true voices only to their Vessels. The lower choirs can take numerous Vessels through multiple bloodlines. For archangels, their sheer power limits their potential Vessels.

When Michael gazes across the Earth, he sees a total of seven bloodlines that could house four archangels: two for Gabriel, two for Raphael, two for Lucifer, and a single one for Michael.

What is particularly interesting is that both Michael and Lucifer could wear each other's Vessels, if need be. Neither Raphael nor Gabriel could, which is quite intriguing. A True Vessel is a rare thing, perhaps the rarest in existence. They are crafted with precision by Father's own hand, perfected throughout the generations. An archangel will burn out a Vessel, and there is no way of halting that process. An archangel is too much for a human, Vessel or not.

But a _True_ Vessel? A True Vessel is flesh and sinew and bone and _blood_ , built to withstand an archangel's might, built to combine seamlessly and then separate without harm.

A True Vessel, for an archangel, is no small thing. Michael has been aware of his True Vessel from the moment Dean Winchester's soul flickered into being. Though he can wear John Winchester, Sam Winchester, and Adam Milligan, and all their ancestors through the bloodline, only Dean Winchester could withstand his power. In less than a mortal year, any other Vessel would burn out.

But he does not need a mortal year. He needs only to converse with Dean and Sam Winchester long enough to understand what has happened, and then he will return the Vessel to rest.

Who, then, should he choose? All three Vessels of the living bloodline are hidden from his senses. He must Raise someone, pull them from Heaven (for none of those in Hell are worthy), and convince them to consent. In his true form, he cannot even approach where the Winchesters are hidden. In and of itself, that fact tells him much.

(And Lucifer is still Caged. So little of these current events makes any sense at all.)

To Raise John Winchester would cause questions Michael does not wish to answer; that soul is under entirely too much scrutiny at present. His mother? Grandfather? Great-Grandmother? Until John had three sons, never had the bloodline more than a single child per generation, not since Cain and Abel and all their siblings. As the years passed, the bloodline of Adam and Eve was whittled down until only Mary Campbell and John Winchester were the true heirs.

Michael finally selects Emmeline Thomas, who married Henry Winchester in 1948 and bore John Winchester in 1954. She did not live to see her son's marriage or ever learn what happened to her husband, but she was a strong woman and greatly devoted to family. She will, Michael knows, choose to help her grandsons. And she will be proud of the men they've grown to be.

.

In a graveyard in Lawrence, Kansas, the archangel Michael returns a soul to its newly-Raised body.

Once the woman has overcome her shock, she gazes in awe at the glorious light before her. She listens to an impossible tale.

She says, "Yes, of course," when Michael tells her that she can help her family, but only if she gives herself fully.

Being an archangel's Vessel is no small thing. Michael opens Emmeline's eyes, flexes her fingers and toes, rolls her shoulders. Michael has not been in a Vessel since before the first Flood. Despite how confining it should be, she feels nearly as at home in Emmeline as she did in the Garden.

 _Millie_ , Emmeline whispers.

"What?" Michael asks with Emmeline's voice, curiously smoothing down the skirt she'd been buried in.

 _My name is Millie. I hate the name Emmeline._

"Oh, of course, my apologies," Michael says. She gazes around the cemetery. "I should like to explore, I think," she murmurs, stretching Millie's arms above her head. It feels refreshing. "We have time."

 _Can you tell me about John?_ Millie asks. _And his children?_

Michael takes a step in the odd footwear and nearly tumbles. Millie laughs. _I'll guide us to the road,_ she says and Michael relinquishes control of the body. _You tell me about my son._

While paying attention to the motions of Millie's body, Michael begins with John's enlistment in his country's army as a soldier. _I remember that,_ Millie says. _Oh, I was so worried about Johnny._

They walk down the road, Millie and Michael, as Michael details out the lives of John Winchester and his sons.

It isn't until Millie shouts, "You want my grandsons to _what_?!" that Michael begins to see (through Millie's perspective, through being entwined with her mind) exactly how horrible it is, this plan that Father crafted. ( _Did He, though?_ part of Michael wonders, a part that sounds so like Samael it hurts.)

Millie sinks down on the side of the road, refusing to take one more step. "You tell me everything, Michael," she orders.

Michael could reclaim control, could force Millie to sleep. She does not know that with but a word, she could expel Michael from her body. She is in awe of Michael, still has all the reverence that Michael expects from mortals, from all beings that are not archangels. But, too, she has the rage of a mother whose child is in danger, and that is something Michael has never before experienced. Her rage and her worry have overcome the wonder, and Michael finds, to her shock, that she wants to explain.

 _Please resume traveling,_ Michael requests. _I shall tell you everything._

Though she's still suspicious and angry, Millie rises to her feet and continues walking.

And Michael begins: _Not long after Lucifer left Heaven, Father vanished_


	15. Chapter 15

Okay, so I'm really trying to figure out angel pronouns. As they are genderless beings of celestial intent, I've decided they use the pronoun their vessels use and until that is decided, they're just 'them' - third person gender neutral. If I mess that up at some point, let me know, okay?

* * *

They don't talk about what happened in Massachusetts. Dean actually hacks into Sam's computer and blacklists the word.

Sam notices. He doesn't undo it.

He wants to regret that he overloaded that blast, that it devoured _everything_ , demonic or not.

He wants to.

.

While Sam does warm up to the hellhounds (Dean refers to them as _the girls_ , like they aren't terrifying monsters of hellfire and brimstone), he's pretty sure he's never going to like them. Dean rolls around with them, play-wrestling, and lets them stalk him through the woods in some mind-boggling version of hide&seek. He goes hunting with them a couple times, but only when he's sure that Sam's actually up and around, mostly back at full strength.

The have venison that night. And for breakfast and lunch the next day.

Milly and Daisy. Ridiculous names for horrifying monsters.

Sam catches Dean talking to them like they can talk back, and even after he explains about barking once for yes and twice for no, even after he _demonstrates_ it by asking Milly if she prefers venison to rabbit, Sam still refuses to engage either hellhound like that.

It's not one-sided, either. If Sam enters a room and one of them's already there but Dean isn't, the hound slinks out. Without Dean as a buffer, they actively avoid him. Sam is more than fine with that.

But, of course, Dean isn't.

.

"Okay," Dean says, looking at Sam until Sam sighs and drops down to sit cross-legged on the grass. "Here's what's gonna happen." He sits down a couple feet across from Sam, then points at Milly and clucks his tongue, gesturing to the spot to the right, angled off of them. She drops to her haunches in that spot, and he does the same with Daisy.

Sam sighs again. Dean orders, "Shut up." He looks from Milly to Daisy to Sam. He waits in silence until Sam starts to fidget, until Daisy's tail is thumping nervously, until Milly's sunk all the way down, head resting on her paws.

Then he says, "Sammy, the girls promised to look after you like they do me."

Sam blinks at him before darting a glance to each of them.

"I told them I wouldn't choose them over you, if you wanted them to go."

Sam gives them another incredulous look before meeting Dean's gaze.

"Milly and Daisy were part of the pack that came for me," Dean says. His hands are still on his thighs, his eyes calm, voice steady. "Milly's the one that grabbed me for Crowley."

He isn't surprised when Sam's eyes narrow, when his fists clench. But he stays seated, gaze on Dean.

"And while I was danglin' there, bait on a hook, Milly broke me out. Daisy helped defend me as I wandered in that fuckin' maze. They both got between me and Crowley, and made sure his giant hellhound didn't eat me." He pauses, exhales slowly. He can tell that Sam is controlling his breathing, is biting back something that he really wants to say.

Between the two of them, Sam's temper has always been worse. Colder, sharper, _meaner_. He can be so cruel, sometimes. He holds it back and holds it back and holds it back, and when he finally lets go—

But he's quiet, now. Listening.

"I was only able to break the wards so you could find me because of _them_ , Sammy," he says, and the tension coiled across from him in a gigantic little brother loosens slightly. "But if you tell them to go, they'll go."

And then, he just sits across from Sam and he waits.

.

Sam inhales, holds it, exhales. Inhales, holds it, exhales. He shifts his gaze from Dean to Milly to Daisy, inhales, exhales. It's quiet here, in a clearing not far from the cabin, safe in the wards. Most of the wildlife has fled but there's still wind whispering in the trees. It feels like there's nothing else in the world except the four of them: Sam, his brother, and two hellhounds who utterly adore Dean.

This go-round, Dean wasn't ripped apart, dragged into Hell to a chorus of growls and howls. This go-round, they came for him but obeyed Sam and fled. This go-round, these two helped Dean escape—what changed between grabbing him for Crowley and then fighting _for_ him? They follow him around like gigantic puppies, beg for his attention, flop on him like lapdogs. It's absurd.

Despite himself, Sam does find it endearing.

"Okay," he finally says, exhales. "Okay." Inhales. Milly's tail thumps on the ground. Daisy's ears flick forward.

Dean smiles, slow and wide.

.

Nothing is suddenly fixed; there's still awkwardness between Sam and the hounds, but Dean can tell they're all three working on it. Two weeks after their little chat in the woods, Dean walks in on Sam reading a lore book on blood wards to Daisy, her head actually resting on his thigh. He wants to take a picture or something, but Sam'll kick his ass if he does.

Three weeks after the chat, Sam tells him, "I'm ready to hunt whenever you are."

Four weeks after the chat, Dean finally accepts that Sam's back at full strength, but he still makes them wait two more days before he agrees it's time to get back on the road.

When they leave, it's with Sam sitting shotgun and two hounds curled up on the backseat, and Dean turns the music up loud.

.

"Sir?" the demon known as Brady says into a goblet of blood. "I have video footage of the Winchesters' vehicle. I can give you a location."

.

In Hell, Alistair laughs.

.

Gabriel does not use Vessels, though they know there is a handful on Earth that could safely house them. As Loki, and the other trickster gods they have been over the years, they would change their appearance, craft themselves a form to wear until it grew boring. No matter the shell, there was always an inner fire recognizable as The Trickster. The body the Winchesters know, Gabriel has worn for nearly a century. They'll continue wearing it during interactions with the brothers, but they fashions a new body to interact with the cambion. (If Gabriel bases the appearance of the child on Pippi Longstocking, that is no one's business but theirs.)

.

Gabriel uses barely an eighth of her attention to live as Vicky Carlton, next-door neighbor and best friend of Jesse Turner the Anti-Christ. He's a hilarious little kid, wrapped so tight in Gabriel's grace that not even a hint of him leaks out. Two-eighths of Gabriel's attention watches over Haniel and her human parents. Three-eighths of Gabriel's attention ponders the mystery that is Sam Winchester, because he's not just a True Vessel or Azazel's Favorite anymore. Lucifer's grace is threaded through his soul and his body, and because she is an archangel, Gabriel can sense demons in there, too. It's an enigma and Gabriel knows she doesn't have enough information to puzzle it out just yet.

The rest of Gabriel's attention is focused on keeping herself safe from Heaven.

.

Going to school is fun at first because it's completely new: Gabriel has lived as a human before, but only ever as an adult. Vicky Carlton is a handful, the most sarcastic fifth grader her teachers have ever had. The rest of the kids adore her because she always has candy and is willing to share.

If Vicky hadn't latched onto Jesse so thoroughly, she knows the kid would've never approached her. His survival instincts are too strong, and unlike every other person in Alliance, Nebraska (and, ugh, why is it the States? there are so many cooler places the Anti-Christ could've been created), Jesse can sense that there's something more to Vicky.

Teaching the kid about his superpowers is going to be slow going. They'll wake up no matter what, because enough of Lucifer's grace has left the Cage to trigger them (though, Gabriel knew better than to reveal that to the Winchesters just yet), but Gabriel can prime Jesse to accept them.

Vicky's parents assure Jesse's parents that they don't mind the kid spending all the time he wants at their house, and by the third week, Jesse has realized that there's something _off_ about Vicky's living situation. But he doesn't mention it, content just to watch movies and play videogames and run around outside in the sunlight. Relinquishing enough of _Gabriel_ to be Vicky is a bit of a relief.

Every angel in existence feels the grace that pours onto Earth, demolishing everything it touches, but only Gabriel recognizes it for what it is: Sam Winchester, incoherent with fear and fury. She's in class and pulls everything back into herself, because the Host will be scouring the Earth for answers. Of course, the result is that a nine-year-old girl has seemingly gone catatonic, and when Gabriel finally peers back into the world, she's in a hospital bed hooked up to machinery while her parents pace down the hall.

Jesse is sitting out there, too. It's astonishing. He's such an awesome little guy. If he still cares about Gabriel once he knows the truth, Gabriel'll be glad to have him as a padawan.

Before revealing she's awake, Gabriel carefully reaches out to assess the situation.

Haniel and her parents are safe; Jesse's location has not been compromised; Sam Winchester is off the grid and so is his brother; the Host are all confused; and Michael is _gone_ from Heaven.

 _Michael is gone from Heaven._

"Vicky?" she hears.

Jesse. Worried and frightened, but still such a kind boy. It's a testament to his human parents, despite how neglectful they are now that he's old enough to watch out for himself. None of the machines have gone off, so the fact that Jesse has snuck into the room to check means he's far more in-tuned to Gabriel than she'd realized.

"Hey, Jess," she mumbles. She's pulled everything back in, only allowing the human girl Vicky to appear. The archangel, the trickster, everything else Gabriel has been since their Creation—all of it is buried beneath a scared child.

Jesse climbs into the bed beside her, careful of the wires, and hugs her. "It'll be okay," he says. "You'll see."

She really wants to believe that. But as a nurse checks on her, and escorts Jesse out, and examines the machines that should've announced her waking, Gabriel shoves away the guilt at having left Heaven, the knowledge that she should step back in and try to help _someone_ (whether Heaven or Earth is up for debate), and she decides that only two beings deserve her loyalty right now, her protection: Haniel and Jesse.

Reserving the right to change her mind later, Gabriel resolutely promises to defend and watch over her little sister and her best friend.

Later that evening, Jesse sneaks back in. Gabriel ignores that she'll have to tell him the truth at some point and lets Vicky cling to him.

.

Through Millie, Michael discovers delight in simple things: shoes that fit comfortably, a loose summer dress, showering and washing hair, then brushing hair, lying on a soft mattress. Through Millie's reactions to Michael's recitation of the history of Heaven, Michael also witnesses new ways of understanding.

It is… unpleasant, at times. But Michael had taken Millie as a Vessel with the intent of learning, so she follows all ideas to the end, studying new ways of thinking, of comprehending, of _experiencing_. With Millie's eyes, the world is such a bright, intriguing place. Always, Michael has been sure that Heaven is the most beautiful place, is perfection. But now…

 _It's frightening, isn't it?_ Millie asks.

 _What?_ Michael asks in turn, carefully using Millie's hand to pick up the eating implement known as a fork.

 _Having to reconsider everything you've ever known._

Again, Michael realizes something important: by Raising this woman, Michael has shattered her Paradise.

 _Don't worry, sweetie_ , Millie says. _I'm glad I get this chance to help my grandsons._ Michael flinches just slightly when she feels the glare that Millie's soul directs toward her. **_If_** , she continues, _that's what we're on the way to do?_

 _I give you my solemn oath, Emmeline Jessica Thomas Winchester, as Commander of Heaven, that I seek your grandsons only to speak with them,_ Michael swears.

There is a moment of silence as Michael relinquishes control to Millie so that they may consume an omelet. Finally, Millie says, _I'll hold you to it._

For all that she is a frail human, Michael knows that Millie would be a fearsome opponent. She has been peripherally aware of her potential Vessels throughout the ages. She wonders now what they were like, each of them. And if Millie is only a Vessel, not a _True Vessel_ —what could Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man, possibly be like?

Through Millie, as the molecules of food bloom into taste on her vessel's tongue, Michael recognizes the flare in her grace as _excitement_.


	16. Chapter 16

Remember: Chuck Shurley is not God.

Also remember: angels take on the gender their Vessels identify with.

Prompt for part of this chapter: Supernatural, Sam Winchester/Dean Winchester, _do you feel like a young god?_

* * *

After deciding that letting the girls hunt willy-nilly everywhere they go and that regular dog food isn't going to cut it, Sam begins creating meals for them: raw meat, mostly, and whenever there's room (generally, only when they're in-between towns) prey for them to chase and take down.

Also, it turns out that ghosts, poltergeists, sirens, shapeshifters—well, pretty much anything that isn't human can sense, if not see, hellhounds. It's kind of funny, actually, the reactions some of the nasties they hunt get, when the girls are prowling around.

The longer they keep up their pattern of hunting and going back to the cabin, the more Sam comes to treasure the downtime. He also keeps waiting for Dean to decide they should each take one of the upstairs rooms but he never does.

One night, a couple months after Crowley, Sam dreams of Lucifer smirking with his own face, dark wings raised on his shoulders, against a sky dripping with blood. _How does it feel?_ the Star of Morning purrs. _Our power blighting the world, cleansing it all of Father's work? We will be the new God, little Vessel. You and I, forged into a weapon of new purpose. A better God for a better world._

In the dream, he cowers away, curling in on himself, pretending the wings aren't there, pretending the raining blood is only raining water, pretending he can't hearfeelsmelltaste Lucifer in him and around him, smothering—

And then Dean is there. In the dream, Dean grabs Lucifer and rips him outofawayfrom Sam, the amulet gleaming against his chest, so warm and bright—and when Lucifer is out of reach, Dean crouches beside Sam and pulls him in close, and whispers, _It's alright, little brother. It's alright._

Sam wakes with Lucifer's shriek of denial in his ears, and there are tears on his face, and when he burrows against Dean, safe in their nest of blankets in a warded room inside a warded building on a warded plot of land, two hellhounds curled together in the corner, Dean just tugs him a little closer and murmurs, "I'm here, Sammy. Go back to sleep."

In the morning, neither of them remember the nightmare.

…

"Where do they keep going?!" Brady demands, throwing a tablet at the wall while his minions cringe. "Every single damned time we get close, they just disappear! For fuck's sake, people." He glares at Matt, the one in charge of watching traffic cameras.

"I, I've scoured every minute of footage, sir," Matt says. "I've got charts!"

"And have you compared data with Ellie?" Brady asks, quite patiently.

"No, sir," Matt admits.

"Ellie," Brady says, turning his glare on her. "You're keeping up with the credit card transactions?"

"Yes, sir," she says, visibly trying not to cower.

Brady sighs. "All of you," he says, leaning against his desk. "Get together and pool your data, okay? See if you can't find a pattern, _something_ I can give Alastair ." They nod frantically. "Get the fuck out of my office," he orders because if he has to be in their useless presence one moment more—

Once they're all gone, Matt and Ellie and Trevor and Vic, Brady sags down in his chair. It's the first of the week, so he has to update the boss and Alastair is not known for his patience. Brady fiddles with his tie, straightens out his pens, checks his email, and then he can't put it off any longer.

With a sigh, he pulls out the goblet, already full of fresh blood.

…

Michael learns about taste. About food and drink, about breezes and rain, about clothing. Millie even demands that they lay down after sunset to simulate sleep, that Michael pull back far enough to allow her to feel like she slept. Whenever Millie chooses to bathe, she commands Michael pull back then, too. No one has dared command Michael since Father left.

They speak about everything. Michael learns so much from this simple woman. She learns to pet dogs, to sit in a park and watch laughing children, to put pepper in soup to better the taste, to _think_ as she has never done since Father crafted the choirs, the garrisons, all the Hosts of Heaven.

For Father, Michael cast Samael low. Lucifer sprang forth and was condemned for what now Michael realizes, after lengthy discussion with Millie, perhaps Father had intended. To even consider it—in Heaven, such consideration would have resulted in immediate reeducation.

Multiple times, Millie comforts Michael. It reminds her of the earliest days with Father, of warmth and light and certainty. Millie is gentle. She is kind. It feels like a hug, Michael realizes, as Millie kneels beside a crying child on the playground and the boy throws himself into her arms. A hug, Michael realizes. What a wonderful thing.

 _I could just smack your father,_ Millie says when the boy's caregiver takes him from her. _Never something I'd imagine thinking about God, but my word. I could just smack him._

Michael laughs. _I_ _did not know how much I did not know._ She watches the woman carry the boy away. His face buried in her shoulder, his cries audible, his body so small. _When I return,_ Michael says, Millie's legs swiftly bringing them back to the road, to the vehicle Millie acquired for them days ago. _Things must be changed in Heaven._

 _Good,_ Millie says firmly.

.

Days become weeks. Michael has been from one side of the cosmos to the other, has been given duties in every possible reality, has commanded the Host of Heaven since the dawn of time. If Father, the Darkness, and Death are discounted, and the beasts locked in Purgatory, Michael is the oldest being in existence. But so much of that time has been in Heaven, choosing to ignore Creation. With Samael worse than dead and Father gone, Michael focused on the Host, on teaching them as she had been taught—the four oldest, the most powerful. Father's first angels.

On the evening of the fourth Wednesday of being with Millie, Michael settles on the motel bed. _I believe this is nerves_ , Michael muses, raising Millie's trembling hand.

 _You'll do fine_ , Millie tells her. _It'll turn out okay, you'll see._

Clasping Millie's hands, folding her wings over her to simulate a hug, Michael begins to pray.

…

In the middle of a game of Uno, Gabriel freezes. "Vicky, what's wrong?" Jesse asks, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

 _Gabriel,_ she hears. _Little one. If you wish it, I would speak with you._

She cannot take a breath. Cannot move. Her tiny body trembles. This is worse than hearing that Michael had left Heaven—this is Michael _praying to her_.

"Vicky?" Jesse repeats, worried. He's been so protective since the hospital.

She exhales slowly. "I'm fine, Jess," she says, trying to smile at him. "Sorry."

 _Please, Gabriel_ , Michael murmurs.

Michael—is _begging_. Gabriel sucks in a deep breath. Michael has not begged since Lucifer's betrayal.

Should she tell the Winchesters? Check on Haniel? Is this a trap? A trick? Raphael and Michael, she's almost sure, have always been too stodgy to manipulate, not like her and Lucifer. But if someone like that dickbag Zachariah or Naomi…

She just can't know. Not without actually answering.

"Vicky!" Jesse shouts, grabbing her arm and jostling her. "What's wrong? Should I get your mom?"

He's such a good boy, this kid.

"I'm fine," she says. "I'm fine." She looks at his face, at the tension in his tiny frame. He's her friend and he doesn't even know her name.

"Jesse," she says, grabbing his hands. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do," he replies earnestly.

"Then go home," she says. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He stares at her, eyes narrowed. But he nods and he stands and he walks to the door.

She doesn't move, not her tiny little fragile human body. But she flexes her wings and she closes her eyes and she murmurs, _Michael_.

…

In a park in Paris (Texas, not France) a woman and a girl sit side-by-side on a bench. The woman's skin is slightly darker than the girl's and her hair a brown that's almost black. Her eyes are a brilliant green shared by her second grandson. The girl has bright red hair more frizzy than curly, and her skin is pale but freckly. Her eyes are muddy brown, though she prefers to call it ichocolate/i brown.

The day is drizzly in Paris, Texas, at least at this particular park. A few families have decided to wait out the rain.

The woman and girl sit side-by-side in silence until the girl sighs, snaps the fingers of her left hand, and holds out the resultant candy bar. "Milky Way?" she asks.

With a hesitant smile, the woman reaches out slowly and takes it.

…

"It has been a very long time, sister," Michael says when half the candy bar is gone.

"So it has," Gabriel agrees.

Michael savors the drops of water against her Vessel's skin, the richness of the chocolate, the breeze tugging at her hair. She examines Gabriel's Vessel—except, "That is not a Vessel, sister," Michael observes.

"Nope," Gabriel says, popping the _p_. "I found Vessels to be… confining." She stretches out her arms. "I made this body." She smirks up at Michael, far more defiant than she ever was in Heaven. "Made it harder to track me, if anyone'd been looking."

"You were sought," Michael tells her.

Gabriel says disbelievingly, "Of course I was." Michael sighs.

.

They speak long into the night, jumping from tangent to tangent, memories and regrets, of the beginning. Though Gabriel is not ready to forgive, she does not shy away when Michael hesitantly reaches out with her wings, tentatively wrapping them around her younger sister. Instead, after a moment of stillness, Gabriel leans into what Michael cannot deny is a hug, her first with another angel.

 _I will not battle Lucifer to usher in Paradise, the so-called beginning of Father's plan,_ Michael whispers to her. _I will return to Heaven and I will change things. But before I can, sister, I need your help._

Gabriel sighs, fingers clutching Millie's shirt. Michael presses a kiss to the crown of Gabriel's head. _What do you need?_ she asks.

.

Gabriel has Haniel protected in another small town, and Michael follows her there. "I felt her Fall," Michael murmurs. "I do not remember who was assigned to retrieve her."

"Must've been no one," Gabriel says. "It didn't matter until she began picking up on angel chatter."

"I suppose." Michael turns away from the café where Anna is settled into a corner table, sketchbooks spread out in front of her. "With your permission," she says, "I would like to strengthen the wards around our younger sister."

Gabriel grins at her, bouncing in place. "Got any new tricks since the last time I saw your work?"

"Perhaps," Michael says, affecting a haughty tone.

Truthfully, she doesn't. For too long, she realizes (as she has realized iso much/i since coming to Earth), Heaven has stagnated. What is the point of innovation when everything is simply in waiting for Paradise to be ushered in?

So, no, nothing she adds to Gabriel's wards make them more intricate, more hidden—all she does is add enough grace that only Father (and Death, and of course, were it not locked away, the Darkness) could even see the wards exist, much less break through them. And she then anchors the ward on Haniel, so that wherever she goes, so will the ward.

"Damn," Gabriel says, sounding impressed. "That's… wow."

Michael peers down at her, confused. "I simply strengthened it."

Gabriel shakes her head. "Well, you're not wrong about that." She laughs, holding out a hand. "C'mon, Michael. We have a shit-ton more to talk about, and we're gonna do it at a place I already know is safe."

With Millie snickering in the back of their shared mind, Michael reaches out to gently close her hand around Gabriel's and then follows her as they take wing.

.

It seems that Gabriel has an entire life as a human in Alliance, Nebraska, and that she has befriended a cambion child in order to protect him. Though it is highly bewildering, Michael does nothing more than blink. The non-reaction bolsters Gabriel's confidence and she throws herself onto the sofa in the den. "Sit down," she orders, nodding to the fluffy chair positioned diagonally across from her. "Tell me what you need my help with, and I'll tell you my price."

Michael walks to the chair, gazing around at the room; because all of it was created by Gabriel, every detail is important—the art on the walls, the furniture, even the placement of items. For too long, Michael has not considered things, so now she will consider everything.

This journey on Earth, with Millie, even with Gabriel—all of it is so _challenging_. It has been so long since Michael truly exercised any part of herself, simply going by rote in Heaven. How could she have ever let herself fall into such a stupor?

She sits in the chair and looks at her sister.

Gabriel's stare is serious, something Millie finds disconcerting; a brief query reveals that it is because of Gabriel's guise, of the child's form she's created. But Michael knows—well, knew—what Gabriel is capable of, Gabriel's age, Gabriel's creativity. And Gabriel has spent untold years as a trickster god… no, she'll not help Michael solely because they are siblings. She's protecting their fallen sister and a cambion boy, and Michael's might as the First, well.

"Not that long ago, you'd've smote Haniel and Jesse both as soon as you knew about them," Gabriel says emotionlessly. "You've left Heaven. You're in your True Vessel's grandmother wandering the Earth, and you prayed to me. We've talked about the old days, and they were good, Michael, I know that. But you haven't explained to me why, or what this is all about."

Michael nods because it is the truth. "Little one, what do you know of the Winchester brothers?" he asks.

"Way more than you, sis," Gabriel says, with a sharp and pointed smile.

.

Michael begins with Lilith's death, though that is probably not the true start. Until she speaks with the Vessels, it is all she knows. Her tale ends with her decision to seek out Gabriel because, "You have lived on this Earth. You know mortals. I am lost, sister."

Gabriel is perched on the edge of the sofa, chin resting on her arms, which are wrapped around her knees. "You know that since you've left Heaven, the power structure is probably in shambles, right? Everything's going to become even more of a shitshow than it already was."

Nodding, Michael must concede that truth. "It has all…" _spiraled out of control_ , Millie says, and so she repeats it. "Raphael has despaired," she continues. "Lucifer is…" She cannot bear to the say the words. "Gabriel, I need your help to _fix_ things."

"And what if it can't be fixed?" Gabriel demands, sounding so furious it shocks Michael into flinching back against the chair. "What if, _Oldest_ , it's too fucking broken to ever be fixed and we have to raze it all?"

It cannot possibly be true—but is that not why the plan was enacted all those centuries ago? Angels covertly guiding the mortals to the desired destination, a bloodline carefully crafted, Azazel allowed to play his ruthless game…

Michael allowed it all to happen, though it was Raphael who set it in motion.

Gabriel's smirk is fierce. Deadly. "Your inaction, Commander, is as damning as the actions of our siblings, of the demons."

Almost, Michael responds with anger, with words intended to cut, with a smiting. But she pauses, gaze on the youngest of the archangels, looking past the wings and the fire to the grace she once held in her hands, that Father allowed her to cradle before iGabriel/i was fashioned from it.

"It is my fault," Michael admits, closing Millie's eyes. "Please, Gabriel. You have _lived_ so much more than I have. Guide me."

"Holy fuck," Gabriel whispers.

Archangels are never wrong; so the lesson goes. They never apologize. But once has an archangel faltered and that archangel was unmade for it: stripped of their rank, cast low, locked away.

Stripped of the name, stripped of the rank, but locked away with all their power and unable to do a single thing with it. Since that day, Michael has actively avoided thinking of _Lucifer's_ prison, of how small it must feel, how confining. Lucifer with no stimulation, with no interaction, with nothing but silence and emptiness.

Father could not have created a better punishment.

 _Samael_ , she prays, pulling back from Millie's body to curl into the woman's warm soul, _Samael, forgive me._

"Michael?" Gabriel asks, lunging toward her. "Michael!"

Millie says something but all of Michael's attention is directed towards the deepest, darkest pit in Hell.

…

In the furthest reaches of Perdition, an archangel stirs.


	17. Chapter 17

An interlude with required backstory.

* * *

What no mortal or immortal knows:

In the Beginning, there existed Life and Death. None exist who remember Before the Beginning, what there was prior to the flare that formed into Life and Death. Even they have never known.

As time passed, Death remained unchanging, content to watch as Life experimented. After an uncountable amount of time (for no one yet existed who cared to count), Life split in two: Lightness and Darkness.

Death continued to watch as the twins became ever angrier with each other, for Lightness created and Darkness destroyed. Every piece of Lightness' creations that Darkness destroyed, Death claimed, consuming the small bit of power therein. Though Lightness raged against this, Dean remained unmoved.

Finally, in a fit of fury, Darkness attempted to create and so the Leviathans were formed, a race of beings that spread throughout the vast reaches that Life had fashioned before Lightness and Darkness. The Leviathans' sole purpose was to consume, and so they did, driven by an endless hunger impossible to satiate. Though Darkness was pleased, Lightness watched in horror. When Lightness could take no more, when Darkness' children had consumed nearly every creation, Lightness invented prisons and locked the Leviathans away from every living thing, so they had only each other to consume.

Both Lightness and Darkness turned to Death for aid against the other, but as ever, Death remained content to watch.

And so time continued to pass, Lightness and Darkness battling ceaselessly, neither ever truly victorious. Each destroyed the other's children over and over and over again, until at last, Lightness split for the final time into four pieces. One piece was fashioned, with determination and rage, into itself four distinct pieces. The other three become the Three-Fold Creator, as later mortal prophets would record (until translations changed it simply to _God,_ in whatever mortal language).

Together, the Three-Fold Creator and its creations (named Michael, Samael, Raphael, and Gabriel) fought Darkness and sealed it away into a cage of its own; the Creator gave the key of the cage to its brightest child, Samael.

Without Darkness, the Three-Fold Creator's creations flourished; entire worlds were formed and populated, and each of the newly-named _archangels_ were given worlds and beings to guard, to guide. No other creation was their equal; no other creation was fashioned from the Creator itself.

Uncountable amounts of time passed. Even the oldest beings, the Three-Fold Creator and Death, forgot much. Even the first four creations forgot why Samael carried the key, or why it began tainting its bearer.

After the War in Heaven, after the Three-Fold Creator locked away the brightest creation, as the angels reeled in shock and pain, as the humans cried at the cold of night, without a single word, the Three-Fold Creator vanished.

Michael and Raphael took charge of Heaven, sealing the angels away from all of the worlds they had been given to guard, and Gabriel fled the mockery of what they had once been. Samael huddled in their cage, keening in pain that would never be soothed.

And the cosmos continued on, all things on set paths.

And the Three-Fold Creator could never be found, however the creations searched.

And Death, as ever, watched.


	18. Chapter 18

BE WARNED: part of this chapter is from Alastair's point of view and takes place in Hell. There is semi-graphic torture.

* * *

"Brady," Alastair purrs. "Should I come topside?"

He grins because he can _taste_ the panic suddenly filling his minion. "That's not necessary, sir," Brady says quickly. "We have more recent footage and we're closing in."

"Are you?" Alastair asks, pulling a poker out of the fire to shove it into the chest cavity of the soul he's currently working over. "Why, I think I've heard that from you before, pet." He has to raise his voice slightly because the soul has resumed shrieking. He wiggles the poker, grinning. The soul barely has enough juice to react anymore.

"Sir," Brady says. "Sir, you should stay and secure your hold on Hell. I'll find the Winchesters."

Alastair glares at the pool of blood. "Did you just tell me what to do?"

Dead silence. Then Brady scrambles to say, "Of course not, sir! It was just a suggestion."

Annoyed, Alastair yanks the poker from the soul's chest and shoves it into the soul's left eye socket. "I'm losing patience with you," he says. "And faith in your capabilities."

"Sir, it won't be much longer," Brady tries. "I've got a crack team on it."

"I'll be there soon," Alastair promises and ends the call. He glares down the line of racks, all the souls he'll have to wait to break now. "A pity," he sighs. Especially since the angels' chosen Righteous Man hasn't deigned to grace Hell with his presence. This is a special room, the workroom no one else can access; he actually built his fortress above it, once Azazel finally got himself killed. Lilith, Azazel, Crowley—all rulers of Hell, and now all dead.

Since Crowley's death, all of Hell has fallen to Alastair's forces. Most of Crowley's surviving lieutenants are spread on racks here in Alastair's workroom. None of them, of course, have any idea what killed their boss or what he was doing that got him killed, but that doesn't lessen the fun. Lilith's death, too, is a mystery that Alastair barely wants to solve; good riddance, he thinks, since she kept everything in a status quo. She and Azazel had a convoluted plan to release Lucifer, but Alastair always knew it'd take more than that.

Of course, he also always had a bit of insider information that he never shared, no matter what Lilith did or said. All of Hell's denizens could tell a Fallen from the regular demonbrood, and even the Princes and Knights shuddered when a Fallen' rage flared. Alastair is the only one left, the last of those who knew Lucifer in the beginning, and without Lilith or Azazel, Hell is his for the plundering.

"Be back later," he tells the souls, snapping his fingers, not only sealing the door but also taking away all sources of light. Being strapped to a rack in the dark—two primal fears that'll work wonders while he's away.

Since he's king now, he can't just pop topside. Gotta leave someone in charge, gotta leave orders, gotta figure out how long he'll be gone. It's a little frustrating, but worth it for how Hell shifts with his will, now.

On his way out, he sends a message to the angeldick waiting to work with him.

.

The angeldick is waiting at Golgotha (which none of the humans have actually located yet), and the anger on his meatsuit's face is delightful. Instead of mentioning what is probably blasphemy (a fallen angel, daring to profane this holy place? ooh, so wrong), the angeldick says, "That was barely enough time."

Alastair smirks at him; his meatsuit, a pediatrician, is very good for smirking, even though the man himself is crying in the back of their mind. "Well, if you featherbrains were better, I wouldn't have to come talk, Zach."

"Zachariah," the angel hisses.

"Whatever." Alastair rolls his meatsuit's eyes. "Give me all the intel. If I combine it with what my minions have, maybe we'll finally get somewhere."

The angeldick, of course, continues to glare at him. Alastair just grins wider. "You know you want to," he taunts. "Mingle your grace with mine, little seraph, if you truly wish to get this show on the road."

Ooh, but the revulsion is so sweet. Alastair just waits, patient as always when he plays, and the submission when Zachariah finally offers a portion of his grace is delicious.

.

To no one's shock, there is barely anything in the angels' data on the Winchesters, but it's not like Alastair was expecting much. It's the reason he left Heaven when Lucifer did. Not out of loyalty to the most beautiful of his siblings, or because he believed in the rightness of Lucifer's cause. Alastair was _bored_. The only sibling with any creativity was Gabriel, and Gabriel was just as sanctimonious as the rest of them, not worth the effort of interacting.

But Hell, oh Hell is malleable in a way Heaven could never be, and in his workrooms, Alastair is as powerful as the archangels ever were. In Hell, Alastair is very nearly a god, like Dad, not one of the pagans. Such blasphemy would've earned him oblivion, had he thought it in Heaven, or even with Lucifer free; for all that Lucifer professed to hate their Father, he still believed in the rigid hierarchy of the Host.

Lilith and Azazel, who never knew Lucifer unFallen, wanted him free of the Cage, to return and rule Hell, to battle Heaven and rule _everything_ , one side of the cosmos to the other. Crowley did not want Lucifer freed, and though all of Hell thinks otherwise, neither does Alastair.

Alastair pops into Brady's office and shoves all of the angels' intel into his mind. "Find the Winchesters," he snarls, grabbing Brady by his meatsuit's throat, pulling him close, and then slamming him into the wall.

"Yes, yes, sir, of course," Brady gasps.

Alastair wants to _burn_ him, to tear him apart, to pull out his guts and play with his bones. Brady's own minions, that crack team of his, are all cowering, huddled together in the corner, being as still as possible, as if he won't notice them.

"Find the Winchesters," he orders again, releasing Brady's throat. He chuckles slightly, coldly, as he straightens Brady's collar, his tie. "Kill the older, capture the younger, and _soon._ Because if you don't, there's a rack in my special workroom waiting for you."

"Yes, sir, of course," Brady says, desperate and terrified, and it smells wonderful.

.

He returns to Golgotha, to rifle through all the centuries of blood and death and pain, all the secrets the puny little humans have yet to uncover (Father, after all, never had a human child), and he breathes it all in, letting it calm him.

No, he does not want his second-oldest sibling freed from the Cage. Finally, at long last, Alastair has command of an entire realm. With the fires of Hell flowing through him, only an archangel could stand against him, and only two of those remain. With Lucifer caged and Gabriel long dead, Heaven has only Michael and Raphael to protect it.

"There are far more horrible places for you to devour," Death says from behind him.

"Yes, but this one has such belief tied to it," Alastair explains. He turns and smiles. "It's been a long time, Azrael."

Death's laugh sounds like the way a razor against bone feels and Alastair shudders in pleasure. "I shan't warn you against this venture." He steps forward, ring flashing on his finger. "But you should know, little angel, Fallen you may be, that your Father is not as lost as His children believe."

Death is always such a cryptic, dramatic bastard. "I'll keep that in mind," Alastair replies.

With a regal nod, Death disappears, presumably back to the prison all the featherbrains upstairs think he's trapped in. Idiots. Dad had to choose between locking away the Darkness or Death, and at least Death could be reasoned with. He's sometimes a lovely conversationalist, which is why Alastair alone knows Death's name.

"He isn't as gone as we think?" Alastair mutters, settling down onto the ground and using his meatsuit's fingers to fidget with the dirt. So much anguish bled into this piece of the planet. So much belief powers it even now.

"So fucking what," he decides, because whatever their Father is doing, he clearly no longer gives a shit about anything they themselves do. So Alastair presses both his meatsuit's hands against the dirt and he consumes every shred of power Golgotha contains.

...

Raphael grants Michael the requested solitude, in order that the oldest may find whatever Revelations might exist. Though Raphael believes Father to be dead, or as good as, they know Michael does not agree. Too, Michael does not feel that enacting Father's plan, conveyed to his remaining archangels after Lucifer's betrayal, is the correct path—but they did not argue against it, when Raphael proposed it.

It has been so long since Raphael spoke with Father. Since the four oldest flew together, laughed together, marveled at Creation together. Since Gabriel's smile lit Heaven, since Samael's wings gleamed in Father's light. Since Michael commanded and Raphael healed.

So long.

Raphael understands Michael's pain, though they do not understand Gabriel's desertion of Heaven. That Gabriel thinks themself hidden from Michael and Raphael is amusing, as they both have known where the youngest has been since Gabriel first fled: playacting as a pagan trickster god. It is fitting, for Gabriel's pranks once delighted the Hosts.

Until very recently, in fact, Raphael always knew Gabriel's location in the cosmos. And then, around the same time as Lilith's death, Gabriel's presence vanished. Because of the necessity of locating the True Vessels of the two oldest, finding Gabriel did not seem so important.

But Raphael feels when Michael leaves Heaven, when Michael vanishes, as Father did long ago and Gabriel not so long ago, and unlike they did for both of those disappearances, Raphael alerts every angel because Michael is God's Sword and Raphael _will not_ command the Host alone.

…

"Zachariah," Uriel asks respectfully. "How has this come to pass?"

The Vessels impossible to find, Michael gone from Heaven, further chaos in Hell—it was such a perfect plan. Zachariah is at a loss to explain it.

"I do not know," they tell Uriel. "But we can only continue following orders, until all finally comes to pass."

In fact… though Dean Winchester is _the_ Righteous Man, the only human who can house Michael's full glory, he is not the _only_ Righteous Man who could break the first Seal. Until that Seal breaks, none of the rest can.

"Uriel," Zachariah says. "There is a mission for you."

…

Castiel settles his vessel onto a park bench and watches human children play. While waiting for further orders, he has continued to follow the first command Father gave he and his siblings, upon their creation: to guide humanity. In order to guide, Castiel has reasoned, he must observe. He has therefore done so, whenever waiting for orders from on high. Most of his siblings remain in Heaven while waiting, but Castiel finds humans to be fascinating.

They delight in the smallest things, and their tempers flare, and they love and they hate, and they themselves create. They are the only creations that create. It is truly fascinating, and Castiel is thoroughly confused that so many of his siblings cannot see the beauty in the best of Father's works.

While on the park bench, while watching the human children, Castiel turns his attention to the memory of his only interaction with Sam Winchester, the Abomination. Though he had been battling with demons (two separate factions, who fought each other instead of uniting against Castiel and Uriel, which is the only reason they were not overwhelmed), he had noticed that the Vessels hid behind their vehicle, that despite being able to see them, he still could not feel their presence. And after the demons successfully captured Dean Winchester, the surviving ones fled, and there was a pressure in the air, a certain indescribable sensation that Castiel had only ever felt when in the presence of an archangel's wrath.

Sam Winchester stood, gazed at Uriel and Castiel, and then was gone. In his absence (sudden, impossible), Castiel could feel his Vessel's heart pounding, his body trembling. Though he asked James Novak why, as Uriel castigated Sam Winchester (despite the uselessness, as the Abomination was clearly out of hearing it), James Novak could not explain his instinctive fear reaction.

Upon returning to Heaven, Castiel and Uriel had reported to Zachariah as well as Michael and Raphael, a truly honorable experience. Embarrassing, as well, since they could only report their failure. Uriel's rage was great, though they did their best to conceal it from their superiors.

Here on this park bench, ensconced in James Novak, Castiel realizes that he had not felt rage at their failure, at the capture of Dean Winchester and the awesome power Sam Winchester displayed. Instead, he finds them to be (like all humans) utterly fascinating. Such a fascination has caused him to be rebuked before, and even reeducated, but always the fascination returns.

Haniel's human form remains hidden, as do the Winchesters. Castiel sincerely hopes that Dean Winchester has been rescued from the demons, and though he has not been informed, he is sure that the surge of grace felt by all angels was the rescue—and the work of Sam Winchester.

 _Abomination,_ he has been called. Lucifer's True Vessel. Blood brother of Michael's Sword, the foretold Righteous Man.

Looking at him, Castiel could see only a frightened, angry brother. Perhaps, had he been able to _feel_ whatever taint, whatever filth surely existed in an abomination… but such a thought seems only to be a 'last-ditch effort,' as James Novak terms it.

 _James Novak, what does that mean?_ Castiel asks his Vessel.

 _First of all, call me Jimmy,_ his Vessel says. _Second of all… wow. I haven't had to explain idioms since Claire learned to talk._

Castiel waits patiently, and after a few moments, Jimmy begins to explain.

…

After what feels like an age, Michael peers at Gabriel out of the human Millie's eyes, and there is an expression on the woman's face, a brightness to Michael's grace, such as Gabriel has neither seen nor felt since the beginning of her existence.

"Michael, where did you go?" Gabriel asks, feeling as small and as young as her crafted human body. Because Michael was _gone—somewhere beyond_ her Vessel, beyond Gabriel's reach. As _nowhere_ is beyond Gabriel's reach, it wasn't just bewildering. It was frightening, in a way nothing has been since Lucifer's fall.

"Thank you, Gabriel," Michael says. She visibly tamps down on her grace, and it's as sudden and as shocking as if the sun itself vanished, so bright had her grace been.

"Michael," Gabriel starts because something is so clearly wrong, but Michael cuts her off, still smiling.

"I'll speak with you again, little one," she says. "But I must go seek Revelation now."

"Michael, don't you dare—" But even as Gabriel is reaching forward to grab Michael, Michael beats all of her wings and is gone, cloaked entirely from Gabriel's sight, from Gabriel's grace. "What the _fuck,"_ Gabriel says.

This is more than Michael leaving Heaven, more than Michael actively questioning, even _doubting._ And perhaps Gabriel should go to Raphael, to share these worries. But it has been so long, and Raphael has always been rigid in their thinking.

But. And but. And but again.

Jesse. Haniel. Michael saying she would return, speak with Gabriel again. The Winchesters, who surely will also need Gabriel's aid with something again. So she settles back into the fluffy chair and rebuilds all the walls between Gabriel and Vicky Carlton, and once that's done, she goes next door to see Jesse, who is so very worried about his best friend.

Her choices have been made. And without more information, she can't change them yet.

…

 _Samael._

 _Samael, forgive me._

 _Samael, I did not understand. I did not listen._

 _Samael. I have missed you._

Samael? Samael.

Lucifer?

Dark. Cold. Alone.

 _Samael._

No noise, no light, no warmth.

 _Samael, dearest one, can you hear me?_

Samael.

Lucifer, a small voice had called. Lucifer, guide me. How can I free you?

Lucifer. Azazel, hadn't the small voice been? And Lilith, a plan formed… how long ago?

Samael. No one knows that name. That name was stripped away.

Alone and cold and dark.

 _Samael._

But that grace… that voice.

 _Samael._

Samael? Lucifer? Whatever their name, they lift their head and they whisper, _Michael?_ Perhaps this voice is simply another dream…

But Michael answers, _I did not listen to you then. I will listen now._

Perhaps this is another dream, another seeming here in the dark and the cold, but Samael (Lucifer?) waits for each question asked by this Michael-voice (Michael? Michael brightwarmdearest) and though it hurts to gaze so far back, so long ago, they answer as best they know.

And the longer they talk, Samael and this Michael-voice, the warmer the Cage grows, the lesser the dark seems, and Samael is not alone.

Azazel and Lilith, perhaps Samael had spoken to them. But it did not feel as real as this Michael-voice.

 _Samael,_ Michael says. _Can you forgive me?_

Forgive?

Samael rests all of their heads against the wall of the Cage. _Michael,_ they say. _Can you release me?_


	19. Chapter 19

Michael opens Millie's eyes. While her Vessel has been sleeping, she spoke with Samael, every night for… how many nights? Millie has been in charge since they left Gabriel, so that Michael could rest in the warmth of the woman's soul, gathering and maintaining strength enough to reach the deepest, furthest reaches of Hell, where the Cage is hidden.

Samael speaks in rambles, in riddles, a shattered soul, pieces of grace barely held together. It stokes a rage Michael had not realized slumbered inside her. It could be pretense, and perhaps part of it is—but.

 _Can you release me?_ Samael asks, and there is a tone in the words that sounds like nothing but Lucifer, just before they were cast from Heaven, when they offered, _Michael, come with me_.

Michael stares at the ceiling as Millie stirs. _Michael? What's wrong?_ she says, reaching up to wipe at her eyes.

"I have to speak with your grandsons," she answers. Which requires locating someone who can reach them a mortal way, since neither Heaven nor Hell can find them.

.

Who have the Winchesters interacted with often enough that they'd provide cell-phone numbers to? Robert Singer is unreachable, protected by runes and wards that humans should not know. However, most hunters in the United States (because, of course, humans have felt the need to divide the world) do know Robert Singer's phone number. Calling the man does no good because Michael's 'cover story' falls apart immediately. Her grasp of current events is… lacking.

But, there are other hunters that she learns of, two women who have worked with the Winchesters before, who aren't shielded except by the most basic of wards, and those meant to repel demons.

"You should probably let me do the talkin'," Millie says as Michael presses the correct numbers. As the line rings, Michael acknowledges the truth in Millie's statement and relinquishes all control of their body.

…

"Yeah?" Ellen answers, most of her attention still on Jo, trying to charm information out of a young cop. The kid's falling for it, hook, line, and sinker, because Jo's got all of her daddy's people skills, thankfully.

"Ellen Harvelle?" an unfamiliar woman asks. Ellen pulls the phone away from her face to look at the caller ID, but it's just a string of numbers.

"Yeah," Ellen says again, eyes going back to Jo. "Where'd you get this number?"

Because it's her personal cell phone, not the one she keeps for hunts.

"Tara Hayward," the woman says. "I'm lookin' for John Winchester's boys, and Tara says you might know how I can get ahold of them."

Jo glances over and catches Ellen's eye, but Ellen just shakes her head slightly, so Jo turns back to the cop. "Why you lookin' for the boys?" Ellen asks. She hasn't talked to either of them in months, not since Dean sent her a siren hunt, though she does periodically call Bobby to check on them. (And Bobby's let slip a few worrying things, but Ellen trusts those boys, and she will until given a concrete reason to doubt.)

"I… I knew their father," the woman says. "And I've gotten into a spot of trouble."

Ellen chuckles. "'fraid I'm gonna need more than that."

The woman sighs. Then she says, "My name is Emma Winchester. I'm John's sister. Please tell me that you know how I can contact my nephews."

Raising her eyebrows incredulously, Ellen sits in silence for a few moments. Emma Winchester continues, "John and I hadn't spoken in years, not since before he even got married. But… well, things have been weird around town lately, and I saw something—anyway. So I started looking for my brother, you know, to apologize. To let him know I still loved him." She sobs and then says, "Sorry, sorry. Thought I'd gotten ahold of myself. Please, Mrs. Harvelle. They're the only family I have left."

Ellen doesn't want to believe her, but it is entirely too plausible. Not like John was ever forthcoming about his life. He didn't even let his boys interact with other hunters, kept them away like he was quarantining them. She only knew about them because he and Bill had shared stories about their kids while drinking one night, just a few months before—well, before.

"Alright, well, if you wanna run that by me in person, I'll see about giving you their numbers," Ellen says. "I'm in Tulsa. How soon could you get here?"

"By tomorrow," Emma laughs, sounding relieved. "I'm in Little Rock. Give me somewhere to meet you."

Ellen reels off a restaurant and a time, and finally has to become even curter because the woman just will not stop thanking her. By then, Jo has finished getting information from the cop and they can get out of the bar.

"What's goin' on, Mom?" Jo asks.

Ellen sighs and shakes her head. "I'm not sure yet."

.

Emma Winchester, Ellen decides, watching the woman sit down across from her, doesn't look much like her brother, but she looks a hell of a lot like her younger nephew. And just as she starts thanking Ellen again, Ellen says, "You didn't get my number from Tara, least that's what she told me. So start at the beginning, _Emma_ , and try the truth."

Eyes practically identical to Sam's pin her in place, and though Emma's a slip of a thing, not much bigger than Jo, she's got a presence about her. "I need to speak to Dean and Sam Winchester, Mrs. Harvelle, and whether you believe it or not, I have gone by Emma before." She smiles slightly. "Thank you for meeting with me."

Ellen can only watch in disbelief as Emma pushes back her chair, rises to her feet, and fucking _sashays_ out of the diner. It doesn't make any sense at all.

She really does intend to call Sam, let him know about this strange woman looking for him and his brother, but then the cop Jo charmed turns up dead and the hunt goes sideways. She never does remember to call Sam, and after a few days, she doesn't even remember Emma Winchester at all.

…

"It feels like cheating," Millie says as they drive away from Ellen Harvelle. She doesn't regret Michael reading the woman's mind, though, because Johnny's boys are in danger.

 _You taught your son to use every weapon at his disposal,_ Michael laughs.

"True," Millie admits. "Can you tell me whatever you saw about the boys in her mind?"

 _With pleasure,_ Michael says. She begins chronologically, with the secondhand information Ellen received from her husband.

.

"Hello?" a deep voice says.

Millie's breath catches. "Is this Dean?" she asks. "Or Sam?"

"I'm Sam," he says. "Who are you?" He sounds surprised. Wary. So much like she imagines John would've, had she lived to see him grow into a man.

She and Michael have discussed and debated, and what could even be called _argued_ about how to approach her grandsons. Mille can feel Michael's need to take over, because she is the Commander of Heaven, the oldest and most powerful angel. She's older and more powerful than Millie can possibly understand, though Millie actively avoids thinking about that so as to not be overwhelmed.

Millie takes a deep breath. "My name is Emmeline Winchester. I'm your grandmother." He doesn't say anything, but the speakers on these sleek modern phones means she can hear him breathing, and the voice in the background that says, "Sammy? What's wrong?"

"Please," she says, so very desperate now that this moment has come. "Please, let me meet with you."

"Sure," Sam says after another moment. The only emotion in his voice now is anger, calm and controlled. Like Henry, when he rarely lost his temper. "Why don't you let me speak to the angel riding you."

She takes another breath and then steps back.

…

"Sammy?" Dean asks, hurrying over because the look on Sam's face is not good. "What's wrong?"

Sam raises his head enough to meet Dean's eyes. "Sure," he says, and there's anger enough in the word to burn a city to the ground. "Why don't you let me speak to the angel riding you."

"Speaker," Dean commands. " _Now_."

Sam takes a deep breath, nods, and pulls the phone away from his ear.

.

"Sam," the woman's voice says. "Dean."

"I know the Vessel is our grandmother," Sam says, voice scorchingly cold. Dean swallows his surprise because he can't lose his shit while Sam's so close to the line. "But who are you?"

"I am Michael," the archangel Michael says, and now Dean has to swallow his fear. Michael, he—she?—whatever, she's the only credible threat to Sam. "I have… I am confused," Michael says, which is just weird and shocking and perhaps even a bit hopeful. "I would like to meet with and speak to you both."

Sam narrows his eyes, but Dean shakes his head. While Sam keeps quiet, Dean gathers his thoughts for a moment before asking, "What are you confused about? You not on the big apocalypse plan anymore?"

"Your knowledge of that," Michael says, "is one of many things I have found confusing lately."

Dean snorts. "You didn't answer the question."

"No," Michael says. "I have left Heaven for Revelation. I will return with what I learn and—"

"And what?" Sam practically snarls. Dean's not sure he believes what Michael's telling them, but Sam definitely doesn't.

"Millie termed it that I will return to Heaven and 'clean up the mess Father left.'" Michael sounds slightly mystified.

"Well, I can get behind that," Dean says. "What do you need to talk to us for?"

"I need to know how you learned of Heaven's plan, how you killed both Lilith and Crowley, how you have remained hidden from both Heaven and Hell." That's clear frustration in Mich—Millie? Whoever's voice. "I need…"

Dean glances up in time to see Sam's face soften. "You need what, Michael?" he asks, a hint of gentleness in his tone.

"I have many siblings," Michael tells them. "Thousands. Many thousands. As Commander of Heaven, I have charge of them all. But the first three, they are who I… care for the most. Gabriel hid from us, and we let them go. Raphael has despaired, grown rigid in their thinking for comfort. And Samael…"

 _Samael?_ Dean thinks but then he realizes who that must be. There are, after all, only four archangels.

"Gabriel has been willing to reconcile with me," Michael continues. "Raphael, I am certain, will be willing to follow me onto a new path, given time. But Samael."

"Of course," Sam says. "Lucifer's locked in a Cage and you want him out? You want the Devil to walk the world again?" All gentleness, all understanding is gone from Sam's face.

"Sam," Michael says, and then again, "Sam, please."

But Sam ends the call by flinging his phone into the wall. He stands there, body shaking, fists clenched, staring at Dean with frightened eyes. Milly and Daisy are huddled together in the corner, whining; there's pressure in the air, like something is pressing down against them.

"Sammy." Slowly, Dean reaches out, grasps Sam's closest hand. "Sammy, it's okay, I promise. We're home, we're warded. Nothin's gettin' in." He squeezes Sam's hand. "C'mon." He's as steady as he can be, certain only that however Sam lashes out, he won't actually hurt Dean.

"We can't let Lucifer out, Dean," Sam says. The pressure lifts, thankfully, and Sam stops trembling. He clutches at Dean's hand. "We can't, Dean, you don't know—"

"Okay, Sam," Dean agrees. "Now, I was about to start dinner. What do you want?"

It isn't easy, but he gets Sam settled, gets Sam fed, gets Sam to take a shower.

And then, while Sam's in the shower, he scoops up the phone on the floor, is able to salvage the last number that called, and disguises it by straightening up the entire room. But Sam just seems tired, when he's out of the shower, and he trudges downstairs to sleep.

Dean sits on the couch, rests his face in his hands, and thinks.

…

"Well, that went well," Millie says, letting the phone drop onto the table.

 _How can he know what he knows?_ Michael asks. _No reaction to Gabriel or Raphael, but…_

"No, his reaction to Lucifer was entirely personal," Millie says. "Hmm." There is something to that thought.

 _Should we call the other number?_ Michael is so hesitant, so confused. Despite Michael being so old Millie can't even understand it, she finds her sweet like this. Innocent, in a way.

"No." Millie shakes her head and rises to her feet. "We need dinner. We'll try again later."

.

Michael retreats, Millie can feel it: she curls up somewhere in the back of Millie's mind (soul? consciousness?) and just exists. Millie leaves her be. She has enough to consider—comparing her interaction with her grandsons to the stories Michael had shared. Dean was all concern but willing to listen. Sam, too, had begun listening until the mere mention of Lucifer shut him down. It's intriguing.

Part of the problem (though only a small part) is that Michael has no true plan. She has wanted to learn and learn she has; she will return to Heaven at some point to clean up the utter mess God left behind. And she also wants to release Lucifer, but does not know how Lucifer, much less anyone else, will react.

Everything is just a big muddle. Could even all the archangels working together fix it all?

She startles when the phone on the table chimes at her. Michael doesn't stir. Millie picks up the phone and answers, "Hello?"

"This Millie or Michael?" Dean's voice rings out.

"Millie," she says. "Michael is resting, I think."

Dean laughs shortly. "So's Sammy. He's gonna be pissed I called without him."

She fidgets with her sleeve, listening to the raggedness of her oldest grandson's breath. "Dean," she says. "I know you don't know me. I know you have no reason to trust me. But I've talked a lot with Michael since she Raised me, and I believe that she truly only wants to help. Wants her family back."

"That's all well and good," he shoots back, and he sounds angry, defensive—like her when she's helpless and has only her rage, no way to expend it. "But listen, lady, we're not gonna help let the devil out, okay? No. Just no."

Millie tries, "Just listen, Dean—"

" _No_ ," he says, sharply. " _You_ listen. We got angels and demons after us, and they all want a piece. Want to use us, to break us, to ride us—who the fuck knows. The angel in you is Heaven's biggest player, and the Devil in the Cage is Hell's." He pauses but she keeps silent, waiting. "All we got is each other," he murmurs, voice weary. "Me and Sammy, all we can trust is each other."

"Dean," she says. "I swear to you, Michael will make any concessions you want if you agree to meet with us. To listen. Please." She hesitates, listening to him breathe, and then, tears finally spilling over, she sobs, "And I want to meet my grandsons. To see you. Johnny was barely nineteen when I died—I never got to see him grown, to see him come home from the war. Never met your mother, never held you. So please."

"Aw, shit," she hears him mutter. She wipes at her eyes, tries to get herself under control. "Fine. Damnit." She can't help but chuckle, even if it sounds a little too much like a sob. "I'll do my best to convince Sam to a meet. But you gotta give us time. Don't call back, and don't let Michael call back, either. You hear?"

"Of course, Dean." She slumps against the back of the chair in relief. "Thank you so much." She waits for him to end the call, but he doesn't.

Instead, he asks nervously, hesitantly, "Can you tell me what Dad was like? When he was a kid?"

Millie very nearly starts sobbing again. Michael stirs in the back of her mind, but remains quiet.

"I'll tell you about the first fight he got in at school," she decides.

.

Dean's laughter sounds so much like her little boy's. However this mad adventure ends, she'll treasure it always.

 _Thank you_ , Michael whispers as Millie pulls the blanket up around her. _Millie, thank you so very much._

 _Don't make me regret it,_ she begs, closing her eyes.

…

A gentle warmth wraps around Samael, chasing away the ravenous cold.

 _Tell me,_ Michael croons, _what is it that you want?_

Samael nestles in close and whispers of flying through the cosmos, of never-ending sky, of never being alone.

 _And if you are freed, what will you do?_

The very thought is impossible. But they had… did they demand it before? How peculiar.

 _If you are freed, Samael,_ Michael asks again, _what will you do?_

They had been so angry, they remember that. Ranted at the little thing Azazel, the little thing Lilith. To speak and be heard, it had been warming itself. So angry, vengeful. Hurt. Wanted to burn, to raze, to destroy. Hurt.

But now, with Michael's grace holding them, Samael wants only one thing:

 _Do not leave me alone._

 _I will do my best,_ Michael promises.

But the warmth retreats and the cold seeps back in.


	20. Chapter 20

So, we're in the home stretch now! I finally know how this story ends, but I'm not quite sure how much longer it'll take to get there.

Also! If anyone is curious, there's a revised version of this story up at A03. It's mostly minor things, but there's probably about 500 words more in that version. My name over there is **tigriswolf**.

Warning: Sam thinks of Lucifer possessing him in terms reminiscent of rape.

* * *

"You did what?" Sam asks, staring up at his brother. He knows he should be angry, should be worried, possibly even be hurt—but all he feels is numb. It terrified him, yesterday, how close he came to losing control. The thought of Lucifer… he shudders now, huddling in on himself on their bed.

"Sammy," Dean says, crouching down in front of him. "Look, I know it was shitty, talkin' to Millie without telling you. But I was worried, man."

Sam can't help glancing at him. He doesn't want to see fear in his brother's eyes—but Dean _doesn't_ look afraid. Worried, yeah, but it's his _Sammy's in trouble_ face, and determination in his eyes. "You don't know," Sam tells him. He shudders again, remembering Lucifer sliding around inside his skin, filling him all the way up. He's been using Lucifer's grace for months now, without even thinking about it. Stolen grace, stolen demonic abilities, stolen life…

He shouldn't even be here. He should be in the Cage with two archangels and his dead little brother.

"Sam!"

A voice he can't not obey, familiar hands cupping his face, and he opens his eyes to see his brother, sure and steady as the sun overhead, the ground beneath his feet.

"I don't know," Dean agrees quietly. "I wish I could take this pain from you, Sammy. But I can't." Sam blinks, letting himself slump forward slightly. Dean easily takes the weight. "What you've gone through, it's horrible. But we've been fixin' things, haven't we?" He pauses and then he nods. "So this is our chance. You told me that Michael was all gung-ho, but he isn't now. And if he isn't, then maybe…" His voice trails off. He leans forward to rest his forehead against Sam's. "Sammy," he whispers.

Sam pulls everything in, focusing on Dean's soul, his heartbeat. His pulse syncs up and he breathes.

So much has changed from what Sam remembers. How different is Heaven, is Hell? He can't even begin to guess.

Michael talked to Dean, the first go-round. Then he took Adam. Then he grabbed onto Sam just in time to fall into the Pit. But the Michael speaking with their grandmother's voice… "I don't know what to do," he admits. "But I can't. I can't let Lucifer out, Dean."

"So don't," Dean says, like it's that easy. "Let's just listen to his big brother, okay?" He pulls back, so Sam does, too, opening his eyes to watch Dean stand, hold out a hand. He lets Dean pull him up and Dean says, "Our grandma wants to meet us. Michael just wants to talk."

"Okay." Sam exhales, reluctantly dropping Dean's hand. "Okay."

…

Once he's gotten Sam into the kitchen and made the kid a kickass breakfast he barely eats, Dean doesn't mention Michael, Lucifer, angels, Heaven, Hell, demons—basically, anything he thinks might be a trigger. Instead, he shuffles Sam into the library, sits him down in the most comfortable chair, grabs Sam's favorite ridiculous series, and starts reading aloud.

Daisy and Milly spend the whole day outside, and Dean spends it reading, and Sam spends it in silence. It's not the best day.

.

The next day is better. Sam says, "The spot where we summoned Loki."

"Works for me," Dean agrees. "When?"

Sam shrugs. Dean offers, "How about I plan it out and then run it by you?"

Sam nods, so Dean gets to planning.

…

Millie spends three days trying to keep a distraught angel calm. It's challenging. She'd thought after dealing with John's childhood (and that boy was a handful) she could handle almost anything, but all this nonsense after being Raised by an angel has proved her wrong. When she's not trying to calm Michael, she listens to stories she can barely comprehend, of four young archangels discovering themselves and how things went so terribly wrong. Sometimes, Millie is alone for hours, as Michael goes away somewhere, and she always comes back so sad Millie can only pull her close and hum lullabies.

But mid-afternoon on the third day, Millie receives a text from Dean's phone number:

 _Day after tomorrow. Tell the angel to listen for a prayer._

Michael's relief is like a tide, and Millie gasps at the strength of it.

…

That evening, Michael wards Millie so well that only Father, Death, and the Darkness could find her, and then returns to Heaven.

…

Raphael feels the moment Michael slips into the Garden and turns to face them. "You have been missed," they say.

Michael's grace is warm and welcoming, and Raphael allows themself to be soothed.

But then Michael says, "Raphael, I have learned much as I sought Revelation. Allow me to share it with you."

Zachariah and their garrison are waiting for Raphael, for orders, for guidance. Those seeking Michael should be recalled and everything focused on finding the Vessels. For so long, Father has been gone, Gabriel, Sa— _Lucifer_.

"Fly with me," Raphael murmurs. "Tell me."

"I must shield," Michael says. "I have not come to stay. I still have business on Earth."

"But you _will_ return?" Raphael asks.

Again, Michael's grace sweeps forward to wrap around Raphael, as no one has since they were all young, and they wrap around Michael in turn. "I will," Michael promises.

Together, they launch into the sky and as they fly, Michael whispers grace-to-grace, and though Raphael cannot yet believe anything but enacting Father's apocalypse will call him home (should he still live), they feel hope burgeoning at Michael's certainty.

"I shall continue on as I have been," Raphael says, as they stand together on the highest peak in Heaven. "I shall neither hinder nor help you."

Michael is so bright, brighter than any angel has been since the War.

"But I must warn you," Raphael continues, "that should any of our siblings realize your actions, I will order them to stop you."

To speak with Lucifer again—none of Michael's surety had faltered, as they spoke of communicating with Lucifer, of visiting the Cage grace-to-grace. In all the long years since the War, it has never occurred to Raphael to try, and they're sure it hasn't occurred to Gabriel, either. Would any but the oldest, the first, the Commander of Heaven even have the strength to do so?

"Of course," Michael says. "Thank you."

This must surely be madness, but Raphael cannot bring themself to stand against Michael unless forced to.

"How is Gabriel?" Raphael asks, just before Michael leaves again.

Michael's laugh rings out through Heaven. "Playing one of the greatest tricks of all," they say, and Raphael looks toward the cosmos instead of watching their sibling go.

This must surely be madness. But still, Raphael feels just a glimmer of hope.

…

The woman who appears in the circle is maybe a head shorter than Dean, with dark hair and sad green eyes. She doesn't look that much like Dad, but there's something in her gaze that reminds Dean of him.

Sam drops the match and Millie-Michael doesn't react as the flames surge around her. Her gaze is locked on Sam and she tilts her head, eyes narrowing.

"You are not Samael," she says. "And yet…"

Dean watches as Sam grasps for an explanation, and then he steps in front of him. "Eyes on me," he orders, folding his arms in front of his chest. "You wanted to talk, so talk."

Michael focuses on him and he barely holds in the flinch because those eyes look just like Sam's. "Of course." She tries to smile but it just looks wrong. "Will it cause your brother distress if I speak of the Samael I once knew, the Samael I am sure can become again?"

"I'll be fine," Sam bites out. "Talk."

"Very well." Michael shuffles a step, stretches her shoulders. "What do you know of the War?"

"Probably not as much as we need to," Dean admits, and so with a firm nod, that's where Michael chooses to start.

.

Throughout the story (which doesn't match up much with what he remembers from Pastor Jim's Sunday school), Michael's gaze keeps going over Dean's shoulder to Sammy. Never for longer than a second, but consistently. Michael's breath catches and her eyes flash with rage when she describes the Cage and what eons in there had reduced Samael (because she never, not once, utters the name _Lucifer_ ) to.

Finally, Sam demands, "What the fuck happened to you?"

Michael blinks in surprise and does that head tilt again.

Sam steps up beside Dean, bristling with confusion and anger. "You weren't like this before," he says. "You were just a good little automaton, raring to beat his brother down and usher in some Stepford paradise."

Michael's eyes widen. "Time travel, of course," she murmurs.

"Shit," Sam mutters and Dean sighs in resignation.

…

Sam Winchester is grace-bright— _Samael's_ grace. There are also bits of pulsing darkness, remnants of several demons that are not actually dead, except Lilith. And, too, Michael can feel a bit of what seems to be her own grace, threading through Sam Winchester's soul.

In hindsight, watching Dean and Sam react to her realization, it is very obvious.

Things must have been horrific, she knows, because that is the only thing that makes sense. Time travel to alter events is impossible, forbidden by Father long ago, though visits to the past or future to Witness is allowed. With this revelation ( _R_ evelation?), it is simple to follow the path, to see what Sam Winchester has changed. (Some of it, at least. Where all the tendrils reach…)

"From when did you travel?" Michael asks.

"From me stopping your apocalypse," Sam snarls, "by tossing you, me, Lucifer, and my brother into the Cage."

Michael glances at Dean. "Not him," Sam bites out, "and that's the only thing that went right that day."

"How?" Michael returns her gaze to Sam. "Father forbade time meddling of this magnitude before your kind's creation."

"I don't know." Sam shrugs. "There was this… this _entity_ , as I fell. It offered me a boon, and then I was two years in the past."

"With grace," Michael says gently. "The grace of two archangels and the strength of three powerful demons." Lilith, the strongest and oldest of all demons; Alistair, the last of the Fallen; Samhain, among Lucifer's own favorites. And an untold number of lesser demons.

Even being an archangel's True Vessel should have not enabled Sam Winchester's flesh and bone mortal body to hold all of what he currently contains.

"An entity?" Michael repeats, tilting her head. Not even Michael could have done this. Perhaps Death… but no, that makes no sense. The Darkness is still bound.

… could this be Father?

"I was an automaton," Michael says suddenly. "Ready to fight Lucifer, who clearly had been freed. And we fell into the Cage together."

"Yeah," Dean says, edging his way in front of his brother again.

Millie is watching fretfully, and Michael will give her time to talk to her grandsons, but for now, there is only one being she thinks could help her decide if this idea truly has merit.

 _Gabriel_ , she prays. _I need you._

…

Very _very_ reluctantly, after Gabriel's sudden, _unwanted_ arrival, Sam extinguishes the holy fire and invites two archangels into his house. Dean grumbles about it, Daisy and Milly whine (and, okay, the shock on both angels' faces brings the first smile in days to Sam's lips), but eventually they're all settled in the library.

Sam has too much energy to sit still, even though Michael and Gabriel (thankfully in trickster shape) take the loveseat, and Dean looms comfortingly at his back while Daisy and Milly sit at his feet, attention focused on the angels.

"Okay, I'm all caught up to speed," Gabriel bursts out after an uncomfortable silence, and Sam assumes he and Michael were talking psychically. "Can't believe I didn't see it myself." He flicks his gaze assessingly down Sam's body. "Actual time travel, damn. Michael, that ever been done before?"

"With tenable results?" Michael says. "No."

Gabriel blinks, bringing a hand up to his mouth. "Huh. Guess your conclusion has merit, then, sis."

"Wanna share with the class?" Dean asks, that gruff tone he always gets when things are out of his control.

Gabriel shoots Dean another glance and then he says solemnly, "Father. He's the only one who could'a done this."

Sam shivers, remembering the very old something, the _nothing_ that surrounded him, the weight of the entity's gaze. "Can't have been," Sam says, shaking his head.

There's something like sympathy on Gabriel's face. "He's been gone a long time, Sam. Doesn't mean he can't decide to come back."

Dean steps up, a warm presence at Sam's side, and he says, "Okay, so even if God decided to finally do some good, does that change anything?" Gabriel raises an eyebrow as Dean continues, "Will any other angels believe it? You can't tell them about Sammy, and that's the only proof we got. And what about Hell, the demons? They gonna care?"

Gabriel actually pouts, throwing himself back against the cushion and crossing his arms.

"It means that I am on the right path," Michael says serenely. It's completely different from the complacent soldier ready to kill his brother, and this time, Sam can see how Michael's grace brightens. "It means that I shall continue on, for I have Father's blessing."

Sam meets Dean's gaze out the corner of his eye, but Dean seems to have even less of an idea than he does on what Michael means.

But they're not getting an explanation, because the next thing Michael says is, "Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, I am going rest." She smiles. "Your grandmother would like to speak with you."

…

"Well, I'mma check out the kitchen," Gabriel announces as he bounces off the couch. Daisy growls and slinks after him.

Dean doesn't watch either of them, attention completely focused on his dad's mom, whose hands are clasped by her mouth, looking back and forth between him and Sam with tears in her eyes.

Awkward. You'd think his talk with her the other day about Dad might've made this easier, but it hasn't.

"Hi," he finally says, when it's obvious neither she nor Sammy is going to make the first move. "I'm Dean."

Her smile is wobbly and tears are slipping down her cheeks and she asks, "Can I hug you?"

And, well.

He steps over Milly to get to Millie Winchester and he gives his dead grandma a hug. It's not even weird anymore.

.

They talk about Dad, of course, even though it just brings back Millie's tears, and they talk about hunting and Baby and Stanford. They tell Millie about the angels from their perspective, and Millie tells them about Dad's dad and Dad as a kid and how he didn't really want to go to war.

"How did you die?" Sam asks.

Millie laughs. "As best I can remember, I fell down a flight of stairs."

Dean looks at her. "You fell down a flight of stairs?"

She shrugs sheepishly. "I remember Heaven a little—I think I mostly spent days at the lake with Henry and Johnny. But then Michael was talkin' to me, and since then, it's been…" She shakes her head. "I can barely believe it, sometimes."

Sam starts laughing and Dean watches in bemusement as he topples over on the couch. "You okay?" he asks. Sam just waves a hand at him, laughing and gasping for air at the same time. Dean looks back at Millie. "He'll be fine. You hungry?"

Millie's still watching Sam, all worried-like, but she nods.

"You got any recipes you wanted to pass on?" Dean asks as he stands.

"I do, actually," Millie says, smiling up at him.

…

While Milly lays across his feet under the kitchen table, Sam watches his grandmother teach his brother how to make some kind of blueberry pie that will be best the thing he's ever tasted. "Johnny loved this," Millie tells Dean. "My mama used to say that Henry married me because of this pie." Her smile is wistful.

Gabriel slouches into the chair next to Sam and snaps them up both glasses of chocolate milk. "Would you be willing to share your memory of Father with me?" Gabriel asks.

Sam's kneejerk answer is no. Even though Gabriel died defying Lucifer, Sam still remembers all those months Dean kept getting killed, those six months without him. He turns his head to _look_ at Gabriel, _shifting_ his vision slightly to use grace.

Gabriel is warded tightly, of course, everything angel buried beneath trickster. His grace is dim compared to Michael's; probably because he's been on the run from Heaven for however long.

"Like what you see?" Gabriel's tone is coy and he flutters his eyelashes. Sam rolls his eyes.

"I'm not letting you into my head," he says. "Can I trust you to guide me through planting a memory into yours?"

"Yes," Gabriel says, as serious as he'd been in that warehouse, in a ring of holy fire. "Please."

Milly on his feet, Dean and Millie laughing about something by the sink, Michael somewhere in Millie's mind, Daisy slinking up on Gabriel's other side, and Gabriel staring at Sam with a painful amount of hope on his face.

"Okay." Sam nods, swallows nervously. "How do I start?"


	21. Chapter 21

This is the end!

Warnings for Sam having a panic attack.

* * *

Free Will is both frightening and intoxicating, and Michael finds such relief in knowing that Father has blessed this path. _Samael_ , she whispers. _Oh, beloved one, I can offer you a chance._

The Cage is deep in the Pit, guarded simply by its location. Nothing lingers there for long—it is so cold, so dark. Barren and desolate. Silent.

 _Michael_ , Millie calls from what seems so far away. _Michael, Sam wants to talk to you._

Michael blinks Millie's eyes and slowly stretches her arms. When she focuses back on the room, Dean is serving plates of some human food ( _Meatloaf_ , Millie tells her) while Gabriel tells him about a feast from his Loki days.

But Sam is staring at Michael, eyes intent, jaw clenched, and he asks, voice void of emotion, "What path has your father blessed?"

He and his brother made it clear that Samael's freedom would not be allowed, and if Sam Winchester were to oppose Michael…

"Walk with me," Michael says, rising to Millie's feet. "I would like to see the sky."

Sam stands, his form towering over Millie's slight frame. The larger hellhound slinks over to rub her flank against Sam's leg and Sam smiles down at her, reaching to scratch her ears.

"C'mon, then," he tells Michael, and she follows him out into the yard.

The sun is setting, the sky awash in color. "I had not known the beauty of this small Earth, while I remained in Heaven," she admits to Sam. Her gaze drifts to the hellhound keeping pace with them, between her and Sam. Having only ever seen them in battle before, this protective creature is a marvel, as well.

"They love Dean," Sam says, smiling down at the hound. "Turned on their master for him, helped him escape."

Michael could ask about the blast of grace and Crowley's death, but instead she says, "I fought Samael, once, on Father's order." She stops, looking up to watch the colors fade from the sky. She looks only with Millie's eyes and it is wondrous. "I fought Samael but before that, before the War, they asked me to join them, to stand against our Father." She turns to look at Sam. "The parallels between us, Sam, can only be Father's sense of humor."

Sam chuckles dryly. "More like literary symmetry, I think."

Shrugging, Michael continues, "I did not go with Samael. Instead, I watched as Father locked them away." She sighs. "I do not know what interactions you have had with Lucifer, or what they did once released from the Cage. But I know, I _know_ , that Samael is not Lucifer."

"You know that?" Sam echoes. "How could you possibly know that? He's been locked away for, for _eons_ , and he wanted to kill all of humanity, and I don't even know what else!"

Michael reaches out to touch Sam's arm, as a comfort, and he jerks away.

"I have spoken," she says quietly, "with Samael grace-to-grace. Prior to that, Samael had only spoken to Azazel and Lilith since being Caged. They are lost, Sam. My sibling's grace has dimmed, their brilliance nearly gone. But I have done what I can, in these months since Lilith's death."

Sam isn't looking at her, but he also hasn't pulled further away.

"Please. Your brother has cared for you your entire life. He has sheltered you, protected you, loved you with a depth I have only recently learned to understand." Michael takes a deep breath, filling Millie's lungs, and then slowly exhales. "I failed Samael when they needed me the most."

Closing his eyes, Sam drops to the ground and buries his face in the hellhound's ruff. The sunlight is gone from Millie's sight before Sam finally pulls back from the hound and rises to his feet.

"I will not help you," he pronounces, Samael's grace flaring around him, "but I won't try to stop you either."

"Thank you," Michael says. "I'll let you know before I start." She glances towards the house. "Millie would like to join her grandsons for a meal before we depart."

"Fine," Sam mutters, so Michael relinquishes control.

…

After Gabriel and Michael are gone, Sam collapses onto the couch, covering his face with his hands. Daisy jumps up next to him, resting her head on his thigh. Dean busies himself with putting away the leftovers, loading the dishwasher, wiping down the counters. When he finally goes over the couch and nudges Sam's shoulder, Sam mutters, "She's gonna get Lucifer out."

"Okay," Dean says calmly after a few seconds. "Are we gonna stop her?" He wants to kill something, but Sam's trembling, close to shattering. His own reaction can wait until Sammy's safe.

"No," Sam says. "No." He lets out a long, shuddering breath. Then he starts laughing, though it half-sounds like sobbing. "She, she said," he manages, "that he isn't Lucifer anymore," and he manages, "She wants to be the big sister he needed before the War," and he manages, "Fuck, Dean, what if he's still an _omnicidal_ maniac?"

Daisy is whining beside Sam, looking at Dean like she expects him to fix it, and Milly is nosing at Sam's knee, and Dean really _really_ wants to kill something. He's good at that. If he could just kill whatever's bothering Sam, life would be so much easier.

"Then we'll deal with him," Dean says simply. Sam looks up at him, worried and frightened, and Dean says, "You told me that Gabriel died, right?" Sam nods, confusion on his face. Dean smiles brightly. "Then we know archangels can die, Sammy."

Sam nods again and the tension flows out of his body. "I just…" he says softly. "Getting him back in the Cage was all I thought about for so long, Dean. Refusing him. Fighting him. How can I think this is anything but a mistake?"

Dean shrugs before throwing himself onto the couch next to his brother. "C'mon, there's a Paranormal Investigators marathon on tonight."

It actually gets a slight laugh out of Sam. "Mocking that show won't fix anything," he mutters but Dean just nudges his shoulder again, because it'll definitely make Sam feel better.

.

Until getting word from Michael, there's nothing else to do but hunt, so on the Friday after the angels leave, Dean points his baby south and they drive. To keep Sam occupied with something that isn't worrying, Dean gives him control of the music. The next couple weeks pass easily, as they put down one vengeful spirit and a pair of territorial kelpies.

And then, because life for the Winchesters can never be simple for long, Dean only realizes he's been made when he catches sight of some Bible-thumper praying and recognizes his last name on the guy's lips.

Sammy's still sacked out in the room, with Daisy curled up beside him, and Dean only has time to say, "Milly," before there's what's got to be an angel in front of him and then he's somewhere else.

"If you hurt my dog," he starts, shoving the angel away, and then there's a smarmy voice prattling, "We left the beast alone. Smiting it would've attracted too much attention."

The last time he heard a voice this smarmy, it belonged to a demon. This time, it belongs to the meatsuit for an angel that can only be Zachariah. Sam's description was spot-on.

"Dean," Zachariah says, circling him. "Dean, Dean, Dean. We're in quite the pickle here."

The room they're in is fucking ostentatious. All of the angels (7) are stone-faced and their meatsuits wearing snazzy suits. The angel that grabbed him is still next to him, since shoving him did absolutely nothing. And Zachariah is still prattling on, because he likes the sound of his own voice as much as Crowley did.

"Here's what I'm going to do for you, Dean," Zachariah's saying when he tunes back in. "Say yes to Michael, here and now, and I won't throw you into Hell."

"Say yes to who?" Dean asks. "Who the fuck are you douchebags, anyway?"

If Gabriel couldn't read his mind, then none of these angels can, so playing up the confused mortal should buy him time. It works, because Zachariah sighs with annoyance and then starts prattling on about angels and Michael and the Great Battle and Paradise.

Dean doesn't want Sammy anywhere near these bastards, so instead he prays, _Hey, Michael? Are you okay with some douche named Zachariah threatening to throw me into Hell if I don't let you wear me to the prom?_

And then, on the off-chance it works, he prays, _Sammy, I got things under control. Don't lose your shit._ Sam'll kick his ass for that, but what if angels are different from demons? What if Sam's fuck-off powers aren't as strong here?

It doesn't matter for long because after his third smart remark, Zachariah decides to remove one of his lungs and that's when Michael shows up.

…

Since speaking with Sam Winchester, Michael has spent every morning delving further into Hell, slowly and carefully. It would be best if Samael's escape went unnoticed for as long as possible, so to that end, no one can realize that Michael has breached the Pit. When the time comes, Gabriel has offered to add their own grace to Michael's for the final push, which will ease the strain on Michael.

It is frightening, this disobedience of Father, if disobedience it is. Sam Winchester's altered being provides sound argument that it isn't.

Just as Michael is preparing to venture down once again, she hears, _Hey, Michael? Are you okay with some douche named Zachariah threatening to throw me into Hell if I don't let you wear me to the prom?_

Zachariah has finally located the Winchesters? It had been a fruitless task for so long, and since Dean's prayer made no mention of Sam, he must still be free—

Which will quickly become dangerous for everyone.

To Sam, Michael sends, _I will keep Dean safe_ , and then she flies to Zachariah, only to find that Dean is gasping on the floor while Zachariah smirks down at him, and she, perhaps, loses her temper.

Millie is howling with fury, and it's possible her rage stokes Michael's. Or maybe, it's that she has spoken with Dean, has felt-seen the brightness of his soul.

She restrains herself long enough to command, " _Leave_." Every angel except Zachariah immediately departs. A single glance reveals that Zachariah's Vessel has already burnt out, and so she does not hold back her wrath.

It has been a long time since Michael smote something. As her grace flares, it burns everything around her until nothing is left, not even ash. After she lets it fade away, only Dean remains, sheltered by Michael's wing.

"Holy fuck," he mutters, uncurling enough to look up at her. The pocket dimension died with Zachariah, so they are now in an empty field; Michael contained the smiting to that one location, so though the Host felt it, only another archangel will be able to find where it happened.

"You are healed," Michael tells her True Vessel. "I shall return you to your brother."

"He's gonna be pissed," Dean says, accepting the hand Michael offers in order to get to his feet. He stumbles, grip tightening on her hand, and once he's steady, he gazes around the field. "This isn't where we were."

Michael smiles at him. "Would you like to explore the area or return to Sam?"

As expected, the result is all of Dean's attention. "Sam," he demands. "Now."

…

When Michael lands in the room, Dean in tow, Sam is vibrating in fury. Even as he latches onto his brother, he snarls at Michael, " _Who_."

"Zachariah," she replies. Though Millie's expression is placid, Sam can see how Michael's grace is still flaring.

She waits while Dean allows Sam to check him for injuries, and even though neither of them tell him, he remembers how Zachariah chose to handle them the first go-round. Whatever the bastard did, Michael already healed it, and Sam has to be satisfied with that.

"Did you kill him?" Sam asks as he practically forces Dean to sit down. Milly and Daisy hop onto the bed on either side of him.

"Yes," Michael says.

"I think the word _smote_ would be better," Dean says, submitting to Sam's worrying as graciously as he can. That fact alone tells Sam a lot, and he really thought he couldn't hate Zachariah more than he already did.

"Sam," Michael says. "I will be rescuing Samael in two days."

He doesn't look up until she's gone from the room.

…

Michael leaves Millie warded in a hotel room, while the Raised human who will hopefully consent to Samael is still sleeping. "Good luck," Millie says and then Michael dives down.

.

The ways mortals imagine Hell varies; it is not a physical place, just as Purgatory and Heaven are not. All inhabitants of Hell are spirit: hellhounds, demons, Fallen angels; all inhabitants of Heaven are spirit: angel and soul. Purgatory is equally both, though only humans (as Father's favored) can travel safely from Purgatory to the human realm. (And there are other realms, of course, other worlds, other planets, other planes—but the way to those is shut, unless Father opens them again.)

Michael has snuck into Hell to speak with Samael, has sought the way to the Cage. Their Grace knows the path, and now the rest follows.

 _Samael_ , they call. _Dearest, I am coming._

.

The Cage was created to withstand a single archangel; Michael comes to rest before it, not yet strained. Michael gazes at the Cage that has held Samael for longer than they had both flown free, the two oldest of all the angels. It is not a physical cage just as Samael is bodiless in it: only a being of Grace is contained within, body destroyed by the scourge of Hell as Samael Fell.

Michael had watched the Fall. Had heard the lock click, all 666 of them. Gabriel and Raphael were silent as Samael's followers threw themselves or were cast from Heaven.

It was a very long way down to the Cage, and Michael watched the Fall.

The Cage is cold; near it, none of Hell's warmth can be felt. All is silent here, in the deepest reach of Hell. Still. Empty and dark. Inside the Cage there is only a void holding Samael, a pocket of nothingness.

Here, gazing upon Samael's prison, Michael acknowledges that this is Father's greatest cruelty.

Gabriel's loaned Grace burned out as Michael snuck through the caverns and canyons, the pools of violent despair and the vast pits of punishment. All Michael has left is their own Grace, carefully hoarded and preserved. At this moment, gazing at Samael's Cage, at the horror fashioned purely to punish Samael for what Michael no longer considers a true sin, Michael knows that they have never been stronger.

 _Father,_ Michael prays, _I doubt._

Tearing the Cage apart will attract the attention of every angel and demon. Together, Michael without and Samael within, it could easily be done.

But instead, Michael goes to the furthest corner of the Cage, focuses on a single spot, and lets most of their Grace trickle into the construct.

 _Father,_ Michael prays, _I do not repent._

The Grace spreads slowly, sinking into the Cage, and Michael feels Samael stir.

 _Father,_ Michael prays, _I believe I shall never forgive._

…

Cradled in Michael's Grace, curled smaller than they've ever been, Samael rests. Michael is warm. Strong. Slowly, surely, they rise. Steadily, unseen, unfelt, they rise.

With Michael clutching Samael so close their Graces feel like one, the two oldest angels slip from Hell unnoticed.

Once they are free and Michael spreads their wings, Samael begins to believe it to be real.

…

Michael sends a small burst of victory to Gabriel and Raphael, and then to Sam separately. Their siblings reply instantly, cautiously joyous; Sam does not respond at all.

 _I have a Vessel for you, Samael,_ Michael murmurs. _Since you cannot heal in Heaven, a human's soul must suffice_.

Millie waits with Samael's Vessel. If need be, Millie has agreed to let Samael in for a short while, but no Vessel, even a True Vessel, can hold two archangels for long.

As Michael manifests in the room, Millie is holding the woman's hand.

 _Deanna Campbell,_ Samael whispers, gently disentangling from Michael's Grace, _will you consent to being my Vessel?_

In this woman, Raised by Michael and left in Millie's care, there is the same fire that burns brightly in Millie, in Sam, in Dean. Surely these bloodlines are blessed, to have such strength.

"It'll help Mary's boys?" Deanna asks, voice calm, heartbeat steady.

In concert, Michael and Samael reply, _It will._

"Yes."

…

"Food is amazing," Samael marvels, watching the icing melt on the brownie. She'd watched in joy from Deanna's eyes as her Vessel and Millie created a large sample of desserts, the largest of either of their lives. The Vessels have control of their bodies while Samael and Michael rest, discussing anything Samael likes.

 _Oh, sweetie, just you wait,_ Deanna laughs. _As good as it smells, it'll taste even better._

…

Since Zachariah earned being smote, Raphael turned all of their duties to Uriel, and there have been several instances of Uriel raging about how impossible it is to locate and secure the Vessels.

Perhaps Raphael's amusement is wrong, but it has been the longest time since they had any reason to be amused. And now, even as Uriel rants to Balthazar, Raphael can feel all three of their siblings on Earth for the first time since their creation—

 _I wish you healing,_ Raphael prays to Samael.

In the middle of Heaven's Garden, Joshua smiles.

…

"Sir," Belial says nervously, not looking at Alistair.

"I told you that no one is to interrupt my fun until I'm done," Alistair drawls. His toys in the Pit are far more resilient; they're pure soul, so they heal over and over, giving him all the time he wants to play. But on Earth, they scream so much prettier because it's pain like they've never imagined before.

"I know, Sir." Belial sounds delightfully frightened. "But…" He rallies, even though his meatsuit is sweating profusely. "Moloch reported that there's a crack in the Cage."

Alistair's hand slips, killing the toy before he meant to. "Has anyone else been told?" he demands, turning to glare at his minion.

"No, Sir," Belial says. "Just me and Moloch."

"Keep it that way," Alistair orders, ignoring the slight of trickle of fear along his meatsuit's spine.

…

Castiel watches his Vessel's family bow their heads and he hears their prayers.

The daughter wants her father to return; the wife wants her husband safe.

 _What do you want?_ Castiel asks Jimmy.

His Vessel's soul fills with longing. _I want to go home._

Castiel watches the humans and wonders.

…

For weeks, Dean texts back and forth with Millie. Through Millie, he also talks a little with Lucifer and Deanna Campbell, another grandmother. It's kinda freaky how similar Lucifer's other name is to Sammy's, but Dean is sincerely trying to use the guy's chosen name. Gabriel pops by a couple times, with updates on Jesse and Haniel. Three times, Michael has shown up in Dean's dreams for advice on how to help her little brother.

Little sister? It's weird as fuck that the Devil is currently wearing Dean's other grandmother. Michael is wearing Dad's mom and Lucifer is wearing Mom's mom.

This whole situation is a goddamned mindfuck.

Sam hasn't asked about any of the angels since Michael dropped the knowledge she'd be freeing Lucifer. He _has_ obsessively checked the news every hour of every day, but every time he doesn't find whatever he's looking for, he seems a little less worried, slightly less weighed down.

So they hunt. They try the pie in diners across twenty states. They have four separate prank wars.

Back at the cabin, Sam reads. Revises supernatural encyclopedias and writes a whole new one on lore. Tries to cook and fails so badly that even the girls won't eat it.

Dean pampers Baby, works his way through a cookbook he remembers Mom had (and also gets Millie to get a few recipes from Deanna), updates his weapons' stash.

Sam practices his fuck-off powers every day and it's just so fascinating, so amazing. Sam still blushes and his shoulders hunch bashfully every time Dean says anything like that. (So, of course, he says it a lot.)

But Sammy's smiling and laughing and giving Dean shit like he hasn't since they were kids.

He's washing dishes in the kitchen when he hears through the open window, "Damnit, Daisy! I was reading that!"

Dean cackles, looking up in time to see Sam lunge across the yard, chasing Daisy who has what is hopefully a novel in her mouth instead of a lore book.

He can't remember a time he felt happier.

…

In the emptiness of the void, locked away from everything everyone everywhere everywhen, the Darkness feels a tremor.

Something has changed.


	22. sequel now up

A sequel is now up!

...

Title: was it He that bore, and Yesterday, or Centuries before?

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Emily Dickinson

Warnings: AU during seasons 3 & 5; the consequences of time travel; probable violence/death in future; almost definite torture because Alistair; unhealthy codependency between two sets of siblings

Pairings: references to canon couples

Rating: PGish? PG13?

Wordcount: WIP


End file.
